Costain

Costain scoops £100m M6 job

Roads infrastructure worker maintenance

Costain has been picked to reconfigure junctions on the M6 motorway. The £100m job will include relocating a J33 slip road 2km to the north in Lancashire, and connecting the new slip road with the existing A6. This will create a bypass for the village of Galgate. In addition, the…

Smart motorways halted: the 11 schemes put on ice

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The future of the multi-billion-pound smart motorway programme hangs in the balance after all future projects were put on ice. Yesterday, the Department for Transport (DfT) decided to adopt the recommendation by a transport select committee in November 2020 calling for new projects to be paused while more safety data is…

Costain faces £54m charge on gas project

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Costain has warned investors that it expects to pay National Grid £53.5m in January for a contract it agreed to exit in June 2020. In a market update this morning, the company said it would look to recover some of this payment from the National Grid. It said its claim…

Crossrail boss: ‘too expensive’ to keep Costain/Skanska on Bond Street

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Crossrail ended its contract with the Costain/Skanska team working on Bond Street station as having the JV restart work during the pandemic was impractical and too expensive, the project’s boss has claimed. Speaking before a London Assembly transport committee, chief executive Mark Wild said the mutual agreement with the JV…

Costain poaches digital chief from Microsoft

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Costain has appointed Matthew Higham as its new chief digital officer. Higham is set to join the contractor on 1 December after leaving his position as chief digital officer for Microsoft UK. Higham will sit on Costain’s executive board, and fills a role that has been vacant since April when…

Costain adds former Rolls-Royce digital chief to board

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Costain has appointed former Rolls-Royce head of digital Neil Crockett as a non-executive director. Crockett will join Costain’s board early next month and sit on the company’s audit, remuneration and nomination committees. Crockett held senior roles at technology firm Cisco for almost a decade and was chief digital office at…

Revealed: five on £1.9bn Lower Thames Crossing shortlists

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Five bidders have been shortlisted to deliver two roads contracts worth a combined £1.9bn for the Lower Thames Crossing. National Highways has today revealed four outfits are competing to deliver roads in Kent and two are in the running in Essex. The bidders are: Kent Roads (lot one) – £600m:…

Costain CEO pinpoints digital-infra knowledge as key to growth

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Positioning itself as a contractor that can help clients make the most of their digital and data capability is key to continued growth for Costain, its chief executive has said. As reported yesterday on Construction News, the contractor bounced back from its disastrous 2020 where it made a £92.3m loss…

Costain rebounds into profit

Heysham M6 link road scheme

Costain swung back into profit in the first half of 2021 as the firm rebounded from a disastrous 2020, and nearly doubled its month-end net cash balance. In interim results for the half-year ended 30 June 2021 released this morning, the contractor reported a pre-tax profit of £9.1m, compared to…

Crossrail confirms 2023 deadline for ‘full’ opening

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Crossrail has committed to opening in full by May 2023. Passengers will have to change trains along the route. Those travelling eastward from Reading or Heathrow will only be able to travel as far as Paddington where they will have to change. Those travelling to the west from Shenfield will…