London-based utilities contractor Falco Construction has been awarded a £4.9 million framework contract for the repair, maintenance and upgrade of Flooding Local Improvement Process (FLIP) systems across Thames Water’s whole operational waste network.

The initial contract term is for 3 years with options to extend by up to a further 5 years.

The company’s founder and Managing Director Brendan Griffin commented:

“Our history is founded on our strong links with Thames Water. Many of the Falco team, including myself, are former Thames Water employees and we are delighted that Falco has been awarded this programme of works,” he said. “This is testament to the hard work our current and past employees have put in working for Thames Water and its Alliance Partners over the years. It marks a great start to the next chapter for Falco which is now owned by its employees.”

In March 2021 the company announced it was had transitioned its ownership structure to an Employee Ownership Trust (EOT).

Falco has installed hundreds of FLIPs systems for Thames Water over the last 10 years, many in locations which required ingenuity, innovation, and persistence from its operational teams.

Brendan Griffin continued:

“This type of customer-facing work requires the utmost attention to customer needs.

“We often work out-of-hours when necessary and the number of customer commendations we receive bears testament to this philosophy. We know that customer engagement is at the heart of the way Thames Water do business and we are delighted to have this opportunity to share those values.”

Falco Construction has been providing groundworks packages to facilitate the repair, maintenance and development of underground water infrastructure since its inception in 2004. Its first major contract was a 2-year package delivering a programme of flood alleviation schemes for Southern Water.

Four years later it was awarded Tier 1 contractor status by Thames Water – enabling it to bid directly for development services packages. Since then the company has successfully provided a number of Flood Alleviation Programmes including Counters Creek in West London, Farnborough and FLIP packages in AMP 5 for Optimise & Eight20 in AMP 6.

FLIP systems protect households against flooding from surface and sewer discharge. A FLIP is an electrically-powered pump which is triggered when the sewer network reaches capacity. The electrical pumps isolate the property from the network, protecting it from hydraulic flooding during times of heavy rainfall.

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