Balfour Beatty is to employ modular construction to build a new covid-19 testing laboratory in Royal Leamington Spa, Warwichshire.
Work on the 225,000 sq ft facility for NHS Test and Trace, called the Rosaling Franklin Laboratory, is already underway.
The lab is expected to add hundreds of thousands of tests to the UK’s daily covid-19 testing capacity.
Works include the construction of a series of laboratory ‘lines’ within the facility as well as the associated welfare and waste management facilities.
Balfour Beatty Kilpatrick is providing the associated mechanical and electrical works. The modular approach to construction means that test processing capacity can increase whilst construction continues.
Mark Bullock, chief executive officer for Balfour Beatty’s UK Construction Services business, said: “We are immensely proud to be bringing together our expertise from across the group, to play a key role in delivering the next generation of diagnostic facilities.
“Once complete, the facility will be the largest of its type in the UK and one of the largest in Europe; representing a significant investment in the UK’s pandemic response infrastructure for the future and integral to tackling the covid-19 pandemic in the immediate term.”
