Re Contract

Balfour Beatty PLC
26 June 2001

             $200 MILLION CONTRACTS FOR BALFOUR BEATTY IN THE USA



Balfour Beatty, the international engineering, construction and services
group, announces today a number of recent US contract awards, principally in
the transportation sector, to a total value of approximately $200 million.
These projects take Balfour Beatty's civil and rail engineering and
construction management order book in the US to over $1 billion.

Commenting on these awards, Balfour Beatty plc Chief Executive, Mike Welton,
said, 'These new projects further consolidate our already strong position in
the world's largest transport infrastructure market. We look forward to
playing a full part in the continuing growth in investment programmes in road
and rail systems in the USA'.

Balfour Beatty Construction Inc, the civil and specialist engineering arm of
the group's US business, has been awarded four contracts in California to a
total value of $129 million. These are for widening the Interstate 10 freeway
which carries commuter traffic into Los Angeles; building a new intake
facility in the Sacramento River, to provide additional water supply to the
treatment plants for the City of Sacramento; and seismic retrofit of one mile
of elevated roadway on Route 80 Bayshore and of the Route 80 Bayshore freeway
from Fifth Avenue to Beale Street, San Francisco.

In Seattle, Balfour Beatty Construction Inc has won work to a total of $34
million. The projects are to construct the intermodal access, S Atlantic
Street viaduct elevated intersection and a new ramp for access from the Port
of Seattle to the Interstate 90 freeway and to retrofit the Seattle Alaska Way
viaduct, following emergency viaduct support work, in respect of last
February's earthquake.

Marta Metroplex, the group's US rail trackwork specialist, has been awarded
two new contracts to a total value of $35 million. The first is for the Pier
400 intermodal container transfer facility for the Port of Los Angeles. The
second is for trackwork at Joliet, Illinois.



Enquiries to:-

Tim Sharp

Tel: [phone]

www.balfourbeatty.com



Notes to Editors

Balfour Beatty in the USA

1. Marta Metroplex is currently constructing a 50-mile extension to the DART
system in Dallas, Texas. It is also working on three other major contracts
amounting to some $150 million in value. These are to construct the BART San
Francisco Airport Extension, the Alameda Corridor Rail Project in Los Angeles
and the Southern New Jersey Light Rail System.

2. In February 2001, Balfour Beatty acquired the Rail Systems Division of
ABC-NACO, the US industrial group, for a total consideration of $21.5 million.
The business has been renamed Balfour Beatty Rail Systems Inc, and operates
nationally in the US, but with particular focus on California, the North East
and the South East. Its largest current project is the $51 million turnkey
signalling contract for SEPTA, a Pennsylvanian transit authority.

3. In civil and specialist engineering, Balfour Beatty had 2000 sales of over
$340 million, covering road and interchange construction in Texas, marine
structures, large bridges and complex highways in the Eastern States and
tunnelling and seismic retrofit in California.

4. Heery is a leading architectural engineering and programme management
company with annual turnover of over $150 million and a client list which
includes Coca Cola, Home Depot and MBNA.

5. Andover Controls is a market and technology leader in building management
and security control systems and has annual sales of over $100 million.
Integral Technologies, which was acquired in July, is a leader in security
surveillance and digital imaging technology. Andover's clients include Merck,
AT & T and Johnson & Johnson.