Cumbria Highways is the partnership between Cumbria County Council and two private companies – Amey and Capita Symonds.
Together, our mission is to maintain and improve Cumbria’s highways network in a safe condition and with minimum disruption. We aim to do it by working with parish, district and county councillors, with the communities we serve and with other stakeholders.
The Partnership came into being in April 2005 when Amey joined forces with Cumbria County Council and Capita Symonds.
The county council had already been working closely with its first private sector partner Capita Symonds since the authority signed a contract in 2001 to provide business and design services across a wide range of council services.
The Cumbria Highways strategic partnership combines the county council’s legal responsibility as the highway authority for Cumbria, the democratic decision making of its members and the experience of its staff with the skills and professional specialist support services of Amey and the engineering expertise of Capita Symonds.
Both companies bring vast resources and the experience of large national companies who provide partnership and support to many local authorities and public bodies in the UK.
Today Cumbria Highways employs around 600 staff. It operates out of a network of depots around the county at Barrow, Brampton, Kendal, Dalston and a brand new depot just opened at Lillyhall. The main depot is at Skirsgill, near Penrith.
The partnership operates a fleet of hundreds of vehicles, from vans and pickups to specialist winter gritters, surface dressing and surfacing equipment.
The Cumbria Highways partners are committed to working together to deliver a first class highways service for Cumbria. Together we have been developing creative new ways of providing a top class responsive services like our new Highway Stewards scheme.
The partnership was created following a vote by Cumbria County Councillors as part of the Invest to Save and Improve initiative which was designed to secure better services and make more effective use of public money.
Both Amey and Capita Symonds won competitive tendering processes to become partners of the county council.