Costain heads race for £50m NE roads project

Costain looks set to resume its winning ways on highways projects.

The contractor, which clocked up a string of high-value victories last year, is now tipped to reel in the £50m ECI Package B deal in the North East. Sources say the firm has overtaken its four rivals – Nuttall, Birse, Skanska and Mowlem – for the slashed-down and repackaged deal.

The original package, valued at £70m-plus, featured four schemes. But last year, the Highways Agency (HA) carried out a hatchet-job, stripping the package down to just two projects. These are the A19 Seaton Burn and the A19 Testos grade separated junctions – worth £29.4m and £20.5m respectively.

The former includes 2.3km of dual two-lane highway, with Testos featuring 2.4km of the same.

The HA claims that the other two schemes in the package have not fallen into a black hole, but are likely to resurface as a two-in-one deal, possibly later this year.

The projects left by the wayside are the A66 Long Newton grade separated junction and the A64 Rillington bypass.