Costain, a leading engineering solutions provider, has announced that it has been awarded two contracts.

Firstly, in Joint Venture, a £102m Northern Ireland Roads Service contract awarded for the design and construction phase of the A8 Belfast to Larne Dualling, split equally between the Joint Venture partners, Costain, Lagan Construction and Ferrovial Agroman.

The Joint Venture will design, construct, and provide aftercare for the whole of the A8 Dualling Belfast to Larne Works. The A8 is a strategically important road within Northern Ireland, servicing the port of Larne and carrying in excess of 17,000 vehicles daily.


The award follows on from the successful completion of the Early Contractor Involvement (ECI) consultancy phase of the scheme, announced on 28 January 2010. The work will begin immediately and is expected to complete in winter 2015.

Separately, Costain has also been appointed as preferred bidder design and build contractor by Severn Trent Water to replace its largest covered service reservoir sited at Fritchley, near Ambergate, Derbyshire, in a project worth around £27 million.

Ambergate reservoir is an asset of key strategic importance to Severn Trent Water with the capacity to supply mains water to approximately 590,000 customers across the East Midlands. The scheme will see the construction of two covered reservoirs of 90 and 50ML capacity, to replace the current 128ML reservoir.

A planning application has been submitted and is currently under consideration by the local planning authority. Once approved work is due to begin on site in January 2013 for four years, with some early enabling works taking place in coming months.