Balfour Beatty confirms £74m bridge win

Balfour Beatty has confirmed that it has won a £74m contract to complete painting work on the Forth Bridge, which carries the East Coast Main Line north of Edinburgh.

The work is set for completion in 2012.

Balfour Beatty Civil Engineering has already undertaken refurbishment works on the bridgefor the past six years.

Commenting on the win, the firm's chief executive Ian Tyler said: "The Forth Bridge is a working monument to the genius of British railway engineering. The work currently being undertaken will restore the bridge to its original condition and preserve the steel-work for decades to come.

“The team currently working on the bridge has now completed some of the most difficult work and they have already overcome the most significant challenges that this project posed."

The works involve a series of phased operations which see access scaffolding erected and the work areas screened from the environment before existing layers of paint, applied over 120 years, are removed using abrasive blasting.

Steelwork is then repaired before three layers of paint are applied.