W S Atkins well placed to benefit from early HS2 work
CIVIL engineering consultancy W S Atkins has said it is confident of winning further new business on the HS2 high speed rail line between London and Birmingham.
The company has worked on the initial stages of the £50bn project and said it was hopeful of securing additional work as and when required.
“The rail business has been involved in early stage design for phase one of High Speed 2 (HS2), between London and the West Midlands, including civils design and environmental work and we believe we are well placed to win further opportunities on phase two<2 said in its annual results statement.
The company’s water and environment business has also undertaken significant work on the HS2 project, together with similar studies for the Crossrail scheme.
Announcing a 2.6% increase in annual revenue to £1,750m, together with 16.5% rise in pre-tax profit (£114.2m), the group said it had benefitted considerably from its UK rail activities.
It said: “Our rail business has had a busy year with high levels of utilisation, reflecting the strong pipeline of projects. Over the course of the year, headcount has grown significantly as a number of major signalling, station design and electrification projects have started.”
Work has focussed on delivering signalling projects for the Sussex/Wessex and Kent/Anglia areas, in addition to ongoing work on other non-framework signalling contracts at Cardiff and Wolverhampton.
The UK’s electrification programme has presented substantial opportunities. In partnership with Parsons Brinckerhoff, it is the lead design organisation for the electrification of the Great Western mainline between London and South Wales.
In partnership with Network Rail, Laing O’Rourke and VolkerRail, it is also jointly delivering the Stafford Area Improvement Programme.
During the year it said it had continued to support the delivery of a number of other technically challenging projects for Network Rail, including the transformation of Birmingham New Street station and design work for the East West Rail project, which aims to connect East Anglia with central, southern and western England.
