News Releases
Balfour Beatty awarded £171 million A46 Newark to Widmerpool ECI contract
18 Mar 2004Balfour Beatty, the international engineering, construction and services group, announces today that its subsidiary, Balfour Beatty Civil Engineering, has been awarded the £171 million A46 Newark to Widmerpool dualling improvement scheme in Nottinghamshire by the Highways Agency under an Early Contractor Involvement (ECI) design and build contract. This is the fourth such contract which has been let to Balfour Beatty by the Agency.
Commenting today, Balfour Beatty Chief Executive, Mike Welton, said: “We are delighted to have been selected to work with the Highways Agency on a further important upgrade to the UK’s major road system. Early progress on our other major ECI schemes at Stonehenge and Hindhead is good and we look forward to another successful partnership for the A46.”
Highways Agency Chief Executive, Archie Robertson, said: “The A46 is part of the core trunk road network providing a strategic link between the M1 and the A1 in the East Midlands. This upgrade will improve safety, traffic flows and benefit the region’s economy. This scheme will complement the recently dualled stretch from Newark to Lincoln, which was opened last summer.”
The A46 forms part of the Bath to Lincoln trunk road and is an important key road corridor for long and medium distance traffic travelling from Leicester. The proposed improvements are for the 17 mile route between Newark and Widmerpool.
The ECI contract is a Highways Agency innovation, which involves the contractor much earlier in the life of the scheme to prepare the design and assist with the statutory processes ready for the publication of draft Legal Orders and an Environmental statement. It facilitates the process of addressing environmental impacts at an early stage and builds in cost effective innovation before the scheme is fixed.
Construction is expected to start in 2007 and take two years to complete, following the development of the detailed design proposal and assisting with the statutory processes.
ENDS
Enquires to:
Tim Sharp
Tel: 020 7216 6884
www.balfourbeatty.com
Notes for Editors
- Balfour Beatty is already working on three ECI schemes. These are the A303 Stonehenge project, currently valued at £150 million, which will take road traffic away from the world’s most famous ancient monument; the £132 million A3 project at Hindhead, which will unblock the main bottleneck on the A3 route from London to the South Coast ports; and the £34 million A1 Bramham to Wetherby upgrading scheme.
- Balfour Beatty began work in January 2004 on the £148 million scheme to widen the M25 between junctions 12 and 15 and to build a new spur road for Heathrow’s new Terminal 5.
- Balfour Beatty is a leader in UK road maintenance with long-term contracts for the maintenance of Highways Agency Areas 2, 3 and 4 across southern England and for local authorities in North Yorkshire, Hampshire, Worcestershire and Bedfordshire amongst others.
