Balfour Beatty wins £73m coast defence projects
INFRASTRUCTURE group Balfour Beatt has won two coastal defence contracts in the region worth £73m.
The £20m Anchorsholme Scheme for Blackpool Council and the £53m Rossall Scheme for Wyre Council will replace over 2.9km of the original 1930’s seawalls as part of promenade renewal and beach management projects.
The grouop said it would use Building Information Modelling (BIM) technology on both schemes at design development stage and throughout construction to create a virtual environment to mitigate risks before starting on site. After handover Balfour Beatty staff will train teams from both councils to use BIM for asset management purposes including ongoing operations, maintenance planning and monitoring.
Andrew McNaughton, chief executive of Balfour Beatty said: “Drawing on our extensive experience of delivering coastal defence schemes, we will utilise innovative construction methods such as BIM to deliver first class civil engineering schemes that will protect over 12,000 properties and local infrastructure from the risk of coastal flooding.”
Works on both contracts will commence on site this winter with completion for Anchorsholme in summer 2015 and completion for Rossall in the summer of 2017.
Both schemes will be predominantly funded by the Environment Agency. They form part of the wider Fylde Peninsula Coastal Programme which aims to protect properties from flooding and regenerate parkland areas for local community use.
