Companies involved

Companies involved in the construction of the A55 road

LAING, the Laing group’s roots can be traced back to mid 19th Century Cumbria, around 1848. In 1894, John William Laing joined the company at the age of 14. He is regarded as the founder member of the business as we know it today. His influence continues more than a century later. Laing provide project development, financing, construction and design services both in the Uk and overseas. They also build and develop homes in the UK and America. They have built Nuclear power stations and the M1 motorway in the UK, and also hospitals and large housing estates. Laing employ more than 8,500 people world wide, and has a turnover exceeding $2.5 billion.

HYDER, is the UK’s first truly integrated company, providing water, waste water treatment, gas and electricity services. Dwr Cymru – Welsh Water, Hyder’s water business provides around 3 million people in Wales and in parts of England. They also collect and treat sewage for safe disposal earning themselves a good reputation for environmental care. Their energy business called SWALEC, sells and distributes electricity operates a 32,000 Km network of cables and power lines, and sells and distributes electricity to almost a million customers in Wales. SWALEC Gas is also a major supplier in the United Kingdom.
Hyder are a leading member of the consortia involved in major highway schemes. These include an involvement in building India’s first motorway, upgrading and maintaining roads in Finland and the United Kingdom, and a new 22 Km – eight lane highway in Australia. Hyder offers a complete private networks utility service to new and established industrial complexes and to developers.

TARMAC, One of Europe’s largest construction and heavy building materials serves groups, with growing world wide activities, particularly in the Pacific Rim, North America and South East Asia. It all began in 1901, when Nottingham’s county surveyor – Mr. E. Purnell Hooley was passing a local ironworks and saw a barrel of tar had spilled on the road from a passing dray. The tar had been covered with waste slag from the ironworks to prevent a sticky mess. Hooley seized on the idea of devising a British patent for mixing tar with slag and eventually creating the material he called Tarmac. Sir Alfred Hickman bought the idea, and re-launched the company as Tarmac in 1905. Today, Tarmac is a household name. The company has an annual turnover of almost 3 billion, employs around 24,000 people, and has operations or offices in over 30 countries.