FIVE bidders have been selected to tender for Weymouth's new Orange Route relief road, Dorset County Council announced today.

They include Balfour Beatty Civil Engineering-Gifford Partners Ltd, Birse Civils Ltd-WSP Civils Ltd, Carillion Construction Ltd-Capita Symonds Ltd-Waterman Burrow Crocker Ltd, Edmund Nuttall Ltd-Parsons Brinckerhoff Ltd and Skanska Construction UK Ltd-Owen Williams Ltd.

The county council added that it planned to unveil a formal planning application for the route next month.

The project, estimated at more than £50 million, includes a 3.75-mile single carriageway to relieve both the A354 from Weymouth to Dorchester and the A353 to the east. Work is expected to start in late 2007 and should take about three years.