Lagan Asfalt Sp z o.o. has secured a major sub contract from SRB,a joint venture between Sisk and Roadbridge, to complete asphalt surfacing on the A1 Kowal to Sojki contract.

The contract involves the manufacturing and laying of 300,000t of asphalt materials on the main A1 motorway currently being built by SRB. A new Phoenix Starmix 4000 asphalt plant has been erected on site. However, the aggregate sources are up to 450km away with deliveries via the railway network. Each rail delivery is between 1,400t and 2,300t. A new fully equipped laboratory is also on site to analyse the incoming constituents as well as mixed materials and cores from site.

External auditing has recently taken place by SGS in order to secure the required ISO 9001, 14001 and CE FPC certifications.

The mainline carriageway consists of 250mm of High Stiffness Modulus materials for the Base and Binder layers followed by a 40mm layer of Stone Mastic Asphalt Surface Course. The contract stipulates that the materials are laid full carriageway width without longitudinal joints. A new Vogele 2100-2 tracked paver has been specifically brought in for the contract.

The tight surfacing programme is compounded further by the harsh Polish winter when works will stop for several months.

Lagan staff have relocated to Poland for the duration of the project in addition to employing local workers.

A number of local MLAs, Councillors and Community Groups attended an event to celebrate the Alpha Programme having distributed over £1,000,000.

The landfill tax credits generated from the site at Mullaghglass have benefited over 37 community and biodiversity projects within a 10 mile radius of the site.

Over £100,000 of the total to date has been provided by Alpha Resource Management supplementing the Landfill Tax Credit Scheme from HM Treasury.

Projects which were awarded funding this year include the multi sports area at Carrickhill; refurbishment of two community buildings, one in Belfast and one in Aghalee; new play facilities in Springhill Park (W.Belfast); environmental improvements in Wallace Park, Lisburn and an interactive play area at Suffolk Community Centre (S.Belfast).

Sylvia Gordon, Groundwork NI Director commented,

"We are delighted to be working in partnership with Alpha Resource Management to manage the Alpha Programme. In this financial year alone the programme has funded a total of 11 projects with £349,943 funding. These projects have secured additional funding totaling £867,211. Over the past four years the Programme has benefited many community groups and organisations through a wide range of diverse projects. Groundwork NI makes the commitment to leveraging in additional funding with the purpose of making the best possible intervention."

Lagan Tile products are used throughout the UK ad Ireland. Recent developments include a Lagan Homes development at Thaxton Village, Lisburn (on the left, above) and a GK Developments site in Scarva (to the right, above).

Strangford (NI) MP, Jim Shannon, recently took the opportunity to see how the streets of London are being paved with Ballystockart stone.

Mr.Shannon visited a Transport for London resurfacing scheme at Hyde Park Corner, one of central London’s busiest and most high profile intersections. Whitemountain’s Ballystockart aggregate had been shipped from a dedicated export facility at Belfast Port to the Dagenham depot of Eurovia Infrastructure Ltd. who then integrated the aggregate in the final surface course.

Eurovia’s U-LM is a thin surfacing system for roads which has high durability and low noise properties and Ballystockart is one of only a small number of sources in the British Isles which can supply the required high PSV (Polished Stone Value) of +68 for the U-LM mix.

Mr Shannon, who is his party’s Transport Spokesman in Westminster, had visited both the quarry and port facilities a few months ago to see aggregate production and shipping operations and was delighted to see the material in use beside Parliament.

"It is great to see Whitemountain Quarries Ltd. building strong relationships and a reputation for quality products with major Companies in the Highway Construction Sector," he said during his late night visit to the site.

Whitemountain exports to a number of major asphalt manufacturers with a particularly strong presence in the South East of England.

Lagan Cement continues to focus on innovative ways to introduce sustainable and responsible practices at the plant in Kinnegad. Following on from a string of accreditations and awards, recent Alternative Fuels projects have addressed 3 main areas as follows:

Liquid Recovered Fuels

The Storage and Dosing Facility for Liquid Recovered Fuels is nearing completion and is due to be commissioned during June 2011. The objective of the facility is to further reduce usage of imported fossil fuels such as coal and gas oil by utilising renewable greener energy liquid fuels sourced locally in Ireland.

SRF Kiln Unloading Bays

SRF is Solid Recovered Fuel derived mainly from renewable and non-recycleable shredded paper and plastic residues from the waste sector. Phase I facilitated storage and dosing of SRF to the Calciner part of the manufacturing process and it was completed in December 2008. Phase II of SRF handling facilities at Lagan Cement was completed in December 2010 with the construction of unloading bays for delivering SRF to the kiln.

Low Carbon Fuel

Similar to SRF, this is a shredded paper and plastic waste in use at Lagan Cement and derived from the healthcare sector, carefully prepared to enable fossil fuel replacement with a renewable, local and greener energy source.

The Clay Division is in the process of being re-branded into a single company to strengthen its market position going forward.

The businesses of Kingscourt Brick, Flemings Fireclays Manufacturing and Flemings Fireclays have been brought together under the banner of Lagan Brick Limited.

The move comes in response to changes in the Irish market, requests for customer clarity as well as operational efficiency reasons.

Under the new brand, our sales force is equipped to sell the full range of clay products and all deliveries will be invoiced as Lagan Brick.

Other changes behind the scenes will result in the old companies being closed down and all assets transferred to a single company over the coming months.

Two new websites have been developed to help promote the combined product range:

www.laganbrick.com www.laganchimneysystems.com

The newly merged company has a long established history. Kingscourt Brick has been producing bricks for over 100 years in County Cavan. Flemings Fireclays Manufacturing has been making chimney products (flue liners, chimney pots and fire backs) and bricks in County Laois since 1935. Barclay Brick was set up eight years ago to import a range of bricks, clay roof tiles and cladding products.

Lagan Tile has unveiled two new products with the introduction of the Mock Bond Elite and Square Top tile ranges.

The company, which continues to promote high quality concrete roof products to customers throughout the UK and Ireland, began production of the new tiles in February and launched the Square Top tile to the UK market in March.

Mulholland Bros has purchased a new 55 metre barge as part of ongoing investment in dredging operations at Lough Neagh.

With a 6.5 metre beam, a 2.9 metre draught and weighing 250 tonnes, Cornelis SR will be the largest sand dredger operating on the lough. When fully commissioned, the barge will have the capacity to carry 400 tonnes per trip – over 300,000 tonnes a year.

The barge was built in Holland and was purchased from a local family who lived on board and transported cargo for a living on the Rhine Canal system.

Following inspection in a dry dock, the vessel set out on a five-day voyage to Lisahally Port in Derry where it was prepared for one of the largest road transport operations ever seen in Ireland.

Two 500/t cranes lifted the barge out of the water onto a special road trailer. The wheelhouse of the vessel had to be removed to comply with height restrictions identified by a structural survey of bridges on the route. Many roads were closed and in Dungiven street lighting, road signs and overhead cables had to be moved to enable Cornelis SR to pass through.

The journey took over ten hours to cover a distance of 44 miles.

At Toomebridge, the barge was transferred to a specially built slip and placed on plinths before being lifted into the lough. The barge was then towed to Sandy Bay, where it was converted to a sand barge by the Mulhollands team.

Roadmix has opened a new state of the art concrete production facility at Whitemountain Quarry outside Lisburn.

With the addition of new environmentally friendly truck mixers, Roadmix plants are now well placed to service the Greater Belfast area as well as further afield including Carrickfergus in the north, Antrim in the west, Lurgan in the south west and Banbridge in the south.