Re Contract

Balfour Beatty PLC
14 January 2002

 BALFOUR BEATTY WINS OVER $220 MILLION OF NEW INFRASTRUCTURE WORK IN THE USA

        Four New Contracts Strengthen Position in Growing Markets for 
                            Civil and Rail Engineering



Balfour Beatty, the international engineering, construction and services
group, announces today that it has been awarded over $220 million of new
infrastructure development work in the USA.

In Providence, Rhode Island, Balfour Beatty has been awarded the contract to
construct a waste water tunnel in the Narragansett Bay area by the
Narragansett Bay Commission. It has also won a first US rail maintenance
contract in California and two major new road building contracts in Texas.

Commenting today on these awards, Balfour Beatty Chief Executive, Mike Welton,
said:

'We are now a leading player in the growing US markets for civil and rail
engineering. This substantial tranche of new work brings our total US order
book to almost $1.2 billion. It is particularly pleasing to have won our first
rail maintenance contract in the US, which is also the first US heavy haul
freight maintenance contract ever awarded to an independent contractor. The
rail sector should offer further growth opportunities where our strong US
business base can be augmented by Balfour Beatty's established worldwide
project skills and technical capabilities.'

Providence Tunnel

The Narragansett Bay Tunnel project, which will commence shortly, will be
undertaken in joint venture with Balfour Beatty's established US tunnelling
partner, M L Shank Inc. The two companies have worked together on three
extensive tunnelling projects for the Los Angeles Metropolitan Link District
to a total value of almost $300 million. The tunnel will be over 16,000 feet
in length and 26 feet in diameter and will be built some 300 feet below ground
level beneath the City of Providence, Rhode Island. It is scheduled for
completion in the autumn of 2005. It will handle waste water for the
Providence area.

Rail Maintenance

In the rail sector, Balfour Beatty subsidiaries, Marta Track Constructors Inc
and Metroplex Corporation, have been awarded the five-year contract with an
additional five-year option by the Alameda Corridor Transportation Authority
to maintain the new Alameda Corridor rail link in Los Angeles, California,
which they are currently in the process of constructing. The maintenance
contract will commence early in 2002. The contract is multidisciplinary,
covering track, signals, telecommunications, structures, pumping stations and
emergency response.

In the UK, Balfour Beatty Rail has more than £160 million annual long-term
maintenance work on three of Railtrack's zones - Kent, Anglia and Wessex. It
is also responsible for the maintenance of the Klang Valley Commuter System in
Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.

Texas Roads

In Texas, two substantial new road contracts have been secured, one in Houston
for the Harris County Toll Road Authority and another in Desoto, South of
Dallas, for the Texas Department of Transportation. Balfour Beatty has
excellent, long-standing relationships with the authorities responsible for
highways in Texas, with work to a value of approaching $500 million having
been successfully completed in that state since 1994 and a current order book
of over $180 million. Additionally, Balfour Beatty is currently bidding the
SH120 toll road project in Texas in joint venture, likely to be worth some
$1.2 billion.

Enquiries to:

Tim Sharp
Tel: [phone]

www.balfourbeatty.com



Notes to Editors

Balfour Beatty in the USA

1. Balfour Beatty had 2001 US sales in civil and specialist engineering of
approximately $350 million, covering road and interchange construction in
Texas, marine structures, large bridges, complex highways, water and
telecommunication projects in the Eastern States, and highways, tunnelling and
seismic retrofit in California. In August 2001, it acquired National
Engineering and Contracting of Cleveland, Ohio, a specialist in bridge, road,
water and telecommunication construction projects in Ohio and West Virginia.

2. In rail, Balfour Beatty had 2001 sales in the US of approximately $130
million. Marta Track Constructors Inc and Metroplex Corporation are leading US
trackwork contractors. They are 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.

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. Heery is a leading architectural engineering and programme management
company with annual turnover of over $200 million and a client list which
includes Coca Cola, Home Depot and MBNA.

4. 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 2000, is a leader in security
surveillance and digital imaging technology. Andover's clients include Merck,
AT & T and Johnson & Johnson.