Costain wins construction award

Costain has received national recognition for work carried out on the £68 million Harbour Way section of the peripheral distributor road in Port Talbot, Wales.

The company won the integration and collaborative working award at the 2013 Constructing Excellence in Wales (CEW) Awards.

Costain was recognised for its achievement in handling the largest transport project to be supported by the European Regional Development Fund Convergence programme in Wales, with client Neath Port Talbot County Borough Council (NPTCBC) and key stakeholders.

CEW is a Welsh Government-backed organisation that helps the construction industry improve its performance in delivering better quality and value for money to clients and end users.

Harbour Way provides 4.5km of dual carriageway access road from the M4 junction 38, into Port Talbot and its docks.  It connects with previously completed stages. Costain is constructing it for NPTCBC.

The road has required particularly close collaboration with Indian steelmaker Tata, which owns the Port Talbot steelworks, as well as with Network Rail over whose tracks Costain had to build a major road bridge, and with local residents.

Almost half the length of Harbour Way runs through redundant areas of the steelworks and Costain is creating new entries to the site.

The road passes over the main Swansea to London railway. A 60-year-old bridge that had been the main entry into the steelworks and which passed over the railway had to be demolished, to enable a new, 150m road-over-rail bridge to be constructed as part of Harbour Way, requiring close co-operation with Network Rail during three rail possessions.

Costain’s project manager John Skentelbery (pictured left receiving the award from Neath Port Talbot County Borough Council's, Rhys Griffith) said: “This is a great achievement for us and testament to our ongoing efforts in working together as one team focused on the successful delivery of Harbour Way.”