LOCAL construction companies were furious last night at being “excluded” from the bidding for £250m in school building projects in North and Mid Wales.
A consortium of councils in Gwynedd, Ceredigion and Powys awarded the “framework” status for small and major projects to just six contractors with headquarters in England.
Three of those, Bam, Carillion and Laing O’Rourke will be favoured for the major projects priced at £30m-£100m each at part of the flagship 21st century schools programme by the Welsh Assembly Government for the next four years.
Chris Wynne, the managing director of Wynne Construction in Denbighshire, warned this system of “bundling” contracts was threatening the future of North Wales-based construction firms.
His 80-year-old business recently won a £9.3m contract for a replacement school at Ysgol yr Hendre in Caernarfon. It followed other contracts across North Wales worth £36m in the past two years on schools in Flint, Llangefni, Colwyn Bay, Holyhead and Pwllheli.
It employs around 150 people and it was local companies like his which engaged in training their workforce and taking on the apprentices vital to the future of the industry, he said.
But he warned: “These procurement strategies are spreading across local authorities and within the Welsh health estate and hospitals.
In a letter to economy minister Ieuan Wyn Jones yesterday, he said: “Clearly you do not appreciate the scale of the impact of these procurement strategies and awards will have on the indigenous Welsh companies.
“When these large non-Welsh framework contractors pack up and leave there will be no sustainable legacy in terms of training or long term employment.
Glyn Watkin Jones, chairman of the Bangor-based Watkin Jones construction company, which employs 350 people, said: “Whatever money these big companies make out of these projects goes out of Wales.
“The Assembly Government should be supporting local construction companies.
Plaid Cymru AM for Aberconwy Gareth Jones feared that such huge public spending on building projects wasn’t working on behalf of the economy and businesses of North Wales.