The Gloucestershire-based business is currently supplying ten bridges to the HS2 project, in collaboration with its partner, Mabey Hire, and is hopeful of more work in the pipeline. Mabey Bridge employs 130 people at its head office and factory in Lydney, with many local people working on the HS2 contracts.
Contracts such as these also provide opportunities for other local businesses to win HS2 work indirectly. Mabey Bridge uses local suppliers including local engineering companies, as well as cleaning, signage, motor vehicle servicing, tools and fastenings, catering, civil contracts and packaging companies. This can have a big impact on the local economy, providing opportunities for many small and medium sized enterprises across the UK.
Today, HS2 CEO Mark Thurston, and Forest of Dean MP Mark Harper, visited the Lydney factory to meet with staff working on the project and to see some of the modular bridges being constructed. The visit was timely as the team from Mabey Hire has recently begun work to install the first of these bridges on the HS2 route in Kenilworth, Warwickshire.
Visiting Mabey Bridge in Lydney, HS2 CEO Mark Thurston said:
“Mabey Bridge is a great example of how HS2 is a project for the whole of the UK and having a positive impact beyond the immediate line of route. There are already over 2000 companies across the UK helping to deliver HS2, sustaining and creating jobs across Britain as we emerge from the pandemic. The scale and longevity of the project means that there will be many more opportunities available for UK firms, particularly small and medium sized enterprises, to get on board.”
Mark Harper, MP for Forest of Dean, said:
“The Government’s investment in infrastructure, such as HS2, is important at a time of economic uncertainty. It is encouraging that businesses across the UK, and particularly here in Gloucestershire, are winning work to deliver HS2, which will sustain local employment.”
Michael Treacy, Chief Executive of Mabey Bridge,
“The HS2 project provides us with a unique opportunity to showcase British manufacturing expertise at its best and to demonstrate to customers, in both the UK and globally, how modular construction is being adopted by UK government as a game-changer on critical national infrastructure projects. We are excited about the potential the project offers to our business and to our local supply chain, and we look forward to working with our partners on the project, Mabey Hire, to support HS2 further as the project develops.”
In April, the Government gave approval for the next stage of the HS2 project which has meant HS2 contractors now have the go ahead to start building the new low carbon, high speed railway. HS2’s Main Works Civils Contractors (MWCCs) are now leading the transition from scheme design and preparatory work, to full detailed design and construction, and this progress has unlocked a huge amounts of new contract opportunities for the construction sector.
