Malcolm Dare, Executive Director for Commercial & Procurement, has written to key firms highlighting plans to press ahead with business as usual, including inviting bids for the £3.6bn operations scheme delivery framework.

He has also revealed Highways England was looking to build up cash reserves with the aim of accelerating work in operations and major projects.

Dare said: “We are continuing to accelerate supplier payments for work completed and correctly invoiced.

“We currently pay 74% of invoices within five working days from the receipt of the invoice for all suppliers and we are looking to improve this further, especially for SMEs.

“We are also ensuring that we have increased cash reserves available to support further accelerated payments.”

He added: “I would also like to stress that all planned and ongoing procurement activities are continuing and they will be published via normal channels.

“For instance we have just released the PIN for the £3.6bn, 6-year Operations Scheme Delivery Framework.

“C-19 related challenges might result in delays to our normal approval times but I would like to re-emphasise that we are continuing to operate as close to business as usual as possible.”

Highways England will be hosting market engagement activities to support the design of the procurement strategy for Scheme Delivery Framework.

Expressions of interest in joining engagement activities are invited from all levels of the supply chain from Tier 1 suppliers to SME’s.

Interested suppliers are requested to email, providing full names and contact details to Procurement_SDF@highwaysengland.co.uk no later than 30 April 2020.

Further detail will be issued to confirm how the engagement will take place, given the countries current situation of social distancing, this may take the form of webinars, Skype calls or similar.