Episode 10: £25m Greatham flood scheme approved, the Redcar Bulk Terminal quay is done, and a £40k bridge repair on the A171

5 October 2026 · 6 min

Hartlepool approves the Environment Agency's £25m Greatham North East flood scheme with BAM Nuttall in the frame; Southbay Engineering finishes the £9m Redcar Bulk Terminal quay upgrade for Net Zero Teesside; Redcar and Cleveland awards a £39,543 parapet repair on Waupley Bridge — plus a profile of Barrier Group's Teesside HVAC team, and why early supplier engagement matters.

Show notes

Transcript

DARREN: Welcome to the Teesside Trade Podcast, the weekly show covering construction, trades and property across the Tees Valley. I'm Darren Turnbull.

TERRY: And I'm Terry Oakes. Three segments as always: the week's news, a local firm worth knowing, and one practical tip.

DARREN: We start with flood defences. Hartlepool Borough Council has granted planning approval for the Environment Agency's Greatham North East Flood Alleviation Scheme. It's a twenty-five million pound job.

TERRY: And it's part of something bigger.

DARREN: It is. It sits inside the thirty million pound Tees Tidelands Programme, which is about realigning flood defences and restoring habitats around the estuary. The headline item is a new one-and-a-half kilometre embankment at Greenabella Marsh, after which the existing embankment will be deliberately breached. Clay for the new bank will be dug from Marsh House Farm nearby, and that land will become a saline lagoon. There are also repairs planned on the Greatham Creek embankment.

TERRY: Timing matters. Construction is due to start early in twenty twenty-seven and run for about two years, once licences and consents are in place. Construction Enquirer reports that BAM Nuttall has been involved for early supplier engagement, though a full main works award hasn't been publicly confirmed.

DARREN: So treat that as a name to watch, not a done deal.

TERRY: Exactly. But if you do earthworks, plant hire, haulage, fencing or environmental work, the main contractor's supply chain is being shaped right now.

DARREN: Second story, and this one's finished. The upgrade of the deep-water quay at Redcar Bulk Terminal is complete. It was awarded in twenty twenty-five to North East firm Southbay Engineering.

TERRY: What did they actually do?

DARREN: They strengthened part of the three hundred and twenty metre quay so it can take equipment weighing up to three and a half thousand tonnes. The published project details put it at about nine million pounds, with a hundred and twenty rotary bored piles, some up to sixty-five metres deep. The first major deliveries for the Net Zero Teesside power project arrived there in April, including modules for the heat recovery steam generator.

TERRY: It's a good reminder that the big headline projects depend on unglamorous enabling work first, like quays, roads and utilities. That's where regional contractors get in.

DARREN: Third story, much smaller. Redcar and Cleveland Council has awarded a thirty-nine thousand, five hundred and forty-three pound contract to repair the parapets on Waupley Bridge, on the A171 near Scaling Dam reservoir. Vehicle collisions have knocked masonry out on both sides, and there's a forty mile an hour restriction in place meanwhile. The winner, through a quotation process, was Wilf Noble Construction and Plant Hire, a North Yorkshire firm, and the three-month contract started on the first of September.

TERRY: Masonry repairs, local workforce, quote-based. That's work a small firm can win.

DARREN: Which brings us to segment two. This week's firm: Barrier Group.

TERRY: Industrial services and modular construction.

DARREN: That's how they describe themselves: a North East-headquartered group, with its registered office in Wallsend, and engineering operations on Teesside. Companies House shows the current group company incorporated in November nineteen ninety-eight, and an older Barrier company going back to nineteen seventy-five.

TERRY: And the Teesside connection is the NZT Power contract.

DARREN: Right. Technip Energies appointed Barrier to design, engineer and supply the heating, ventilation and air conditioning systems for the turbine hall at NZT Power, which is the central building where the electricity is generated. The work is led by the HVAC engineering team at their Haverton Hill facility. According to the Net Zero Teesside supplier spotlight, around ten people are working on the contract now, rising to nearly twenty later, and it's already supported five extra engineering recruits.

TERRY: They've also said it underpins ambitions to expand from their River Tees yard.

DARREN: Which is the real story. A contract lands, the firm hires locally and invests in the yard. For other Tees Valley firms the lesson is that the tier-one contractors are subcontracting specialist packages, and a local base counts for something.

TERRY: Final segment, the tip. Get in before the contract is awarded.

DARREN: Explain that.

TERRY: Look at this week. Greatham: the contractor was brought in for early supplier engagement before a main award. The Redcar quay: finished ahead of the heavy deliveries. Barrier: appointed by the tier-one. The supply chain gets built before the headline contract does.

DARREN: So what do you do on Monday morning?

TERRY: Pick one live project near you. Find who the likely contractor is, and email their procurement or supply chain team with a one-page capability statement: what you do, your accreditations, insurance levels, and your turnaround. Keep it short. Ask to be added to their approved supplier list. Do it before the work is let, not after.

DARREN: That's it for this week. Sources and links for every story are in the show notes at teessidetradepodcast dot co dot uk.

TERRY: And if you know a Teesside firm we should profile, get in touch through the site. See you next Monday.

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