Costain was the most important single provider to Nationwide Highways in 2023/24, simply forward of the Balfour Beatty-linked consortium that carries out M25 improve work, Building Information can reveal.
It marks the third successive monetary yr that the contractor and advisor topped the roads physique’s league desk, and got here regardless of a dip in its roads work in 2023.
Costain was paid £450m by the government-owned company within the yr, down from the £522.4m it received in 2022/23.
Amongst its ongoing work is a £285m improve of the M6 between junctions 21a and 26, within the North West via Merseyside, Cheshire and Larger Manchester.
The second-highest recipient of Nationwide Highways money was Join Plus, which holds the non-public finance initiative contract to keep up and improve the M25. It was paid £447.9m, simply over £2m lower than Costain.
Its complete was £55.3m increased than in the previous financial year, and £100m more than in 2021/22.
Balfour Beatty owns 15 per cent of Join Plus and carries out its work on the highway, alongside Egis and AtkinsRéalis.
In March, the orbital highway was completely closed in each instructions, between junction 10 and 11, for the primary time ever as work to demolish the Clearmount bridleway bridge and set up a big gantry started in earnest.
It was the primary of 5 scheduled M25 closures within the Surrey space.
Balfour Beatty itself was paid £392.2m by Nationwide Highways. Its tasks embrace the continued £355m A63 Fortress Road improve in Hull.
The contractor landed the £1.2bn contract to ship the roads on the north of the River Thames for the Decrease Thames Crossing tunnel in January 2023, however a last approval choice on the venture has been repeatedly delayed, most lately as a result of basic election.
A call on the Essex-to-Kent hyperlink was put again till October after the ballot was introduced.
Tunnelling work is about to be carried out by a Bouygues Travaux Publics and Murphy three way partnership, with Skanska delivering roads in Kent.
| Place | Provider identify (2023/24) | Complete quantity paid |
| 1 | Costain Ltd | £450,072,093.00 |
| 2 | Join Plus (M25) Ltd | £447,941,226.69 |
| 3 | Balfour Beatty Civil Engineering Ltd | £392,223,595.56 |
| 4 | Kier Transportation Ltd/Kier Highways Ltd | £267,466,664.85 |
| 5 | Amey OW Ltd | £156,709,895.20 |
| 6 | Skanska Building UK Ltd | £146,728,525.78 |
| 7 | Ringway Infrastructure Companies Ltd | £129,710,776.04 |
| 8 | Colas Ltd | £111,636,641.60 |
| 9 | Jacobs UK Ltd | £105,881,382.28 |
| 10 | Morgan Sindall Building & Infrastructure Ltd | £103,733,566.28 |
| 11 | Tarmac Buying and selling Ltd | £102,490,855.80 |
| 12 | Galliford Strive Infrastructure Ltd | £88,103,448.91 |
| 13 | John Graham Building Ltd | £87,125,434.30 |
| 14 | WSP UK Ltd | £79,185,153.79 |
| 15 | Bam Morgan Sindall Joint Enterprise | £78,837,555.15 |
| 16 | Telent Expertise Companies Ltd | £65,340,819.64 |
| 17 | Amey Highways Ltd | £64,487,057.23 |
| 18 | HW Martin (Site visitors Administration) Ltd | £60,009,797.23 |
| 19 | Autolink Concessionaires (A19) Ltd | £58,045,229.43 |
| 20 | Join M1-A1 Ltd | £52,406,304.54 |
It also emerged in June {that a} draft of the physique’s third road-investment technique (RIS3) for 2025-30 was postponed as a result of basic election.
Earlier than the election, the Labour Get together pledged to defer the “poor worth for cash” A27 bypass in Arundel, West Sussex, and divert the £320m to fixing a million potholes per yr if it gained workplace.
The Linkconnex consortium, comprised of Bam Nuttall, Mace and Aecom, was set to ship the venture.
In February, the Workplace of Rail and Street introduced an investigation into Nationwide Highways over issues that its efficiency had dropped. It mentioned that in July 2023 it recognized a number of “potential dangers” relating to the physique’s capital portfolio and asset-management technique.
Earlier this yr, a sequence of authorized instances through which campaigners have been difficult its highway plans, together with the A303 Stonehenge Tunnel and three main new highway schemes on the A47 in Norfolk, have been gained by the federal government on behalf of Nationwide Highways.
