Engineering and construction group Balfour Beatty today unveiled two new contracts that will take its maintenance order book to more than £700m.
The London-based firm said its Raynesway Construction Southern (RCS) road management and maintenance business had been awarded the deals for work in Scotland and Essex, which could be worth more than £300m in total.
The Scottish Executive awarded a five-year contract worth £27m a year to Basingstoke-based RCS to manage more than 1,300 kilometres of highways to Wick, Ullapool and Oban and maintain 1,300 structures including the Skye Bridge.
The work will be carried out via a joint venture with project management firm Mouchel Parkman, Balfour said.
The remaining contract was clinched with Essex County Council to maintain roads in mid and east Essex, including Chelmsford, Colchester and Braintree for the next five years for around £20m a year.
Chief executive Ian Tyler said the contracts, which begin in April, consolidated Balfour Beatty’s reputation as a service provider in the fast-growing market of highways management and maintenance.
RCS was established in 1996 and has almost 2,000 employees.
Most of its road work involves the maintenance of major thoroughfares from Kent to the West Country for the Highways Agency, and managing local authority roads in Westminster, North Yorkshire, Hampshire and Wokingham.
The contracts come after the group reported a record order book in August.
Bookings stood at £7.4bn – up 9% from January last year – as it benefited from utility companies needing construction work following regulatory reviews of the gas and water industry.
References: EGi News 09/01/06
