WARRINGTON-BASED United Utilities (UU) has appointed Balfour Beatty to deliver its £500m capital delivery programme.
The contract will see the construction group deliver the infrastructure investments throughout the North-West during the AMP5 cycle, the period from 2010 to 2015.
It will see Balfour Beatty deliver UU’s clean water and wastewater major projects and flood alleviation schemes. The five-year contract will begin in April.
Balfour Beatty also announced yesterday a five-year extension to its existing alliance partnership contract with Anglian Water which is expected to be worth more than £100m.
Balfour Beatty chief executive, Ian Tyler, said: “We are delighted to have secured these AMP 5 capital programme contracts.
“We look forward to working closely with our customers and drawing on our skills and experience to deliver first-class customer service, excellent health and safety management and innovative ways of working.”
The announcements from the utilities firms come just a day after Balfour Beatty was awarded a £4.7m contract for full mechanical and electrical services for the West Derby & Ernest Cookson School under the Building Schools for the Future project.
UU has also received £200,000 from the Northwest Regional Development Agency’s (NWDA) carbon challenge fund, which funds the deployment of low carbon technologies.
The funding is for its £950,000 Gravitox project to take a groundbreaking energy-reducing sewage process from design to fully operational at a wastewater treatment plant in Ellesmere Port.
Gravitox could reduce the energy consumption of its aerated sludge process by up to 75%.
The idea is that by drawing a fluid down a specially created borehole, and the smart use of pumps, it can increase hydrostatic pressure, dissolve air and increase the oxygen transfer to the liquid.
This would reduce the use of the current surface aerators, which consume a lot of electricity.
If it was replicated across the UU network, it would result in annual CO² emissions savings of 82,400 tonnes.
NWDA chief executive Steve Broomhead said: “Projects selected for the Carbon Challenge Fund represent a key part of the Agency’s commitment to creating a low carbon economy in England’s Northwest – improving efficiency, reducing costs and safeguarding jobs.”
