Balfour Beatty has been appointed by Bristow Helicopters Ltd as its infrastructure delivery partner to support the development of its UK Search and Rescue service.

As main contractor for the contract worth in excess of £40 million, 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.

Balfour Beatty will be responsible for delivering infrastructure projects at nine sites across the UK between 2014 and 2017 including the construction of seven new build 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.

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At the forefront of sustainability, the new helicopter bases include a raft of environmental technologies including PV solar panels and rainwater harvesting systems.

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.

Construction is due to commence in early 2014 with developments continuing until early 2017.

(CD)