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EKFB shifts 20 million cubic metres of earth

The EKFB earthworks team has shifted a colossal 20,235,019 cubic metres of rock and earth across Bucks, Northants, Warks and Oxon – enough material to fill 8,000 Olympic-sized swimming pools.

One of HS2’s main works contractors, EKFB, a joint venture between Eiffage, Kier, Ferrovial Construction and BAM Nuttall, has reached a mammoth milestone as it moved an unprecedented 20 million cubic metres of earth. 


Across the contractors 80km section of the HS2 route through Buckinghamshire, Oxfordshire, West Northants and South Warwickshire, EKFB will need to move approximately 50 million cubic metres of earth and rock in total over the four-year earthworks programme.


EKFB’s Earthworks Director, Mark Harrington, said:

“EKFBs earthworks programme is unprecedented in the UK. Moving 20 million cubic metres of rock and material is a huge achievement by all involved and we’re not even halfway towards our final target. But what this milestone represents is excellence in team collaboration and expertise in our field, coupled with advances in the use of digital earthworks data, which we’ve adopted to optimise our delivery processes, enabling greater operational efficiencies to be realised.”


Utilising 800 items of plant from partners, Blackwell Earthworks, Walters, The Buckingham Group, Flannery, Plantforce, Potters, Finning and SMT, and more than 1,000 skilled operatives, the huge task is making way for a network of 33 cuttings and 49 embankments designed to blend the high speed railway into its surrounding landscape.  

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