Laing's maternity delivery

John Laing Construction has won a £37 million contract to design and build two new buildings at Glasgow Royal Infirmary housing a maternity unit and an emergency receiving centre.

Laing fended off bids from Balfour Beatty, Kier and Amec to clinch the contract for the Glasgow Royal Infirmary University NHS Trust.

The project is a scaled down version of a former PFI scheme. The Treasury decided against the PFI option and awarded the Trust £41 million from public funds to undertake a reduced scheme instead.

The new buildings will be constructed on the Royal Infirmary's city centre site and will consolidate the hospitals existing maternity, accident and emergency and plastic and burns treatment facilities onto one location.

The current facilities are spread around the city.

Preparatory work will begin immediately with completion due by 2001.

Laing has employed HLM Architects as its designer, Halcrow Waterman as structural engineer and Balfour Kilpatrick as mechanical engineer.