Bristow Helicopters Ltd has appointed global infrastructure group Balfour Beatty as its infrastructure delivery partner to support the development of its UK Search and Rescue service.
Bristow Helicopters was awarded the ten year UK Search and Rescue contract by the Department for Transport in March 2013 and is due to take over the service on behalf of the MCA from April 2015.
As the main contractor, Balfour Beatty will now begin outsourcing various aspects of the building works to local contractors in the communities in which the bases will be established.
The contract, worth in excess of £40m will see Balfour Beatty delivering infrastructure projects at nine sites across the UK between 2014 and 2017, including the construction of seven newbuild search and rescue helicopter bases at commercial airports in Inverness, Manston, Prestwick, Caernarfon, St Athan, Humberside and Newquay, and the refurbishment of an existing facility in Stornoway. The ninth SAR helicopter base which will be used by Bristow to deliver the contract is an existing Maritime and Coastguard Agency (MCA) facility at Lee-on-Solent and a final tenth base shall be an existing Bristow facility at Sumburgh.
At the forefront of sustainability, the new helicopter bases include a raft of environmental technologies including PV solar panels and rainwater harvesting systems.
Commenting as the contract, Mike Imlach managing director of Bristow Helicopters Ltd said: “We remain committed to involving local contractors in the establishment of the new SAR bases and look forward to seeing these contracts signed in the coming months.
“Our experienced crews have fed into the design process and worked closely with the architects to ensure that the new bases are ideally suited to safe and efficient SAR operations. The identical interior layouts across the country will make it easy for our crew members to work from alternative bases should they need to. Each site will provide modern, high quality accommodation for the aircraft and crews while demonstrating how buildings like this can be made highly sustainable and environmentally friendly.”
Construction is due to commence in early 2014 with developments continuing until early 2017.
