Balfour Beatty delivers £7 million sustainable Crewe Railway Exchange

Balfour Beatty has handed over the completed £7 million Crewe Railway Exchange project for Cheshire East Council at a ceremony to mark the occasion.

Official opening of Crewe Railway Exchange. L-r: Tony O’Brian, Maintenance Deliver Manager, Network Rail; Sheila
Breeze, Station Manager, Virgin Trains; Pete Waterman, Cheshire & Warrington Enterprise Partnership Board
Member; Edward Timpson MP; Councillor Michael Jones, Leader of Cheshire East Council; Peter Commins, Balfour
Beatty Managing Director for the North West; and Chris Winfield, Project Sponsor, Network Rail.

The scheme, which provides improved access at Crewe Railway Station, is the first project to be delivered under the 20-year ‘All Change for Crewe’ regeneration programme. It included the construction of a 244 space car park, with taxi rank and cycling facilities, and new access to the platforms through covered subways with lift access to the parking facilities.

The complex project located on the West Coast Main Line, Britain’s busiest mixed-traffic railway route, involved maintaining the service access route while demolishing two buildings: the Royal Mail building, which was connected to the fabric of the station, and Weston House. The WW1 memorial displayed at Weston House was carefully relocated by the project team to the station’s new entrance building.

Balfour Beatty’s team took a sustainable approach on the project. All the materials from the demolition were reprocessed and converted into usable construction materials. As part of the company’s commitment to local employment, 75% of those employed on the project were from within a 30 mile radius of Crewe.

Peter Commins, Balfour Beatty Managing Director for the North West, said: “This was a complex project with multiple end users who had specific requirements, which through close collaborative working with our customer, Cheshire East Council, and stakeholders, Network Rail and Virgin Trains, we were able to deliver to the satisfaction of all.”