Pinsent Masons advises Connect Roads consortium on AWPR/B-T Project

The Scottish Government announced that the consortium, comprising Balfour Beatty Investments, Carillion Private Finance and Galliford Try Investments, had been successful in its bid to construct the project, which is estimated to be in the region of £745 million. 　　

The project, which will include the design and construction of 46km of new dual carriageway between Stonehaven and Charleston in the south, and Blackdog in the north, and a further 12km of upgraded existing dual carriageway between Blackdog and Tipperty, will inject an estimated £6 billon in to the local economy and create around 14,000 new jobs.　

Drysdale Graham, Infrastructure & Projects partner at Pinsent Masons, said: "This is a significant win for our clients the Connect Roads consortium and for Pinsent Masons. This win reflects our market-leading expertise in the infrastructure sector – we have a strong team of infrastructure　experts working across the UK and the globe on high profile infrastructure projects. This particular roads project will deliver a fast link to the north, west and south of Aberdeen through a bypass. We look forward to working with the consortium to bring this deal to financial close."　　

The joint contract is being procured using the Non Profit Distributing (NPD) model used in Scotland to procure major schemes, based on PFI but with caps on private sector investment returns to encourage surpluses to be redistributed to the public purse.

The government will contribute an 81 per cent share of the £745m costs, while Aberdeen City Council and Aberdeenshire Council’s contribution has been capped at £75 million each.

Work is expected to start later this year, with construction completion expected in 2018.