Daily Mirror (Northern Ireland)
Golden Graham
Ulster firm wins bid for bypass in England
ONE of Northern Ireland’s biggest construction companies has won a multi-million pound contract to build a bypass road in England.
Dromore-based Graham will construct a 5.5km link road for Cheshire East Council outside the town of Congleton.
The contract is part of an overall project worth in excess of £90m and construction work will commence in November with scheduled completion set for late 2020.
Leo Martin, Graham’s Managing Director – Civil Engineering, said the link with bring long-term benefits to the company and to the local community.
He added: “This win is a real coup for us and we are relishing the prospect of collaborating with Cheshire East Council on this important project that will bring economic and social regeneration to Congleton. We are vastly experienced in completing complex highways projects throughout the UK and we will be tapping into this expertise to ensure completion of the link road to the very highest standards.
“We appreciate traffic has been a considerable challenge in the town and the link road will serve to vastly reduce LARGE energy users have been reminded they could save between 6% and 12% on their bills by reviewing their procurement strategies now and taking on board the lessons of last winter, an congestion. But this scheme will do so much more than take vehicles away from the centre; it will also boost the local economy and create new avenues for growth.”
The win marks another feather in the cap for the company which has completed a number of major projects in the highways sector. It can point to the £32m A138 Chelmer Viaduct, a expert from Vayu Energy said.
The long period of unseasonably cold weather coupled with gas field and pipeline maintenance, the closure of the UK’S only long-range storage facility strategic highway link in Essex, which has increased transport capacity and significantly improved journeys for commuters, and the £277m M80 Stepps to Haggs project that transformed one of Scotland’s busiest stretches of road network, as examples of its record.
Core elements of the Congleton project will involve cutting the road 8m deep into mudstone in a 25m-high escarpment before traversing the River Dane with an 85m-long bridge and landing on a 12m-high embankment founded on piled alluvium.
Two further road bridge crossings and two underpasses will be constructed while 3.5km of realigned and new local roads represent an additional portion of the works programme, which demand environmental mitigation to accommodate great crested newts, bats and ancient woodland.
Mr Martin said: “There are a range of civil engineering challenges associated with this project.” and macroeconomic activity caused a hike in demand and a drop in supply during winter 2017, which forced a significant increase in gas prices across the UK and Ireland.