The council aims to move away from a standard contracted out deal towards a full partnership approach to delivering highways upkeep and new road projects.

Its existing term maintenance contract with Kier is due to expire in April 2022 and will make way for the new approach.

The council said: “Our ambition is for this to create an exciting and new way of delivering highways services.

“We are keen to establish a genuine partnership approach which embodies trust in service delivery, pricing and innovations, which would potentially take the relationship to a different level.”

Leading up to the launch of the invitation to tender, Surrey engaged on an extensive pre-market engagement exercise to develop its aim to not only deliver core highways maintenance needs, but create an environment where the council and the supplier would consider ways to transform the way the services are delivered over time and potentially introduce new aspects to the service.

It is now expected that the appointed supplier will not only deliver day to day maintenance services, but may also assist with the design and delivery of major schemes and implement new innovations connected to the operation of the highways network.

Surrey said the contract term with extensions could be for 21 years – involving a 10-year initial term.

The estimated value of this contract is around £2.5bn, made up of the costs in delivering the core element of the services together with additional work depending on the extent to which other innovative services are introduced.

Firms wishing to express an interest in bidding can click here.