A HORWICH company rescued from the receivers is carrying out a prestigious £6.8m tunnelling project in Scotland. Amey-Donelon Ltd of Crown Lane - which rose from the ashes of J F Donelon and Co Ltd - is the UK's leading high technology mechanised tunnelling contractor. It is currently engaged in a sewer scheme for West of Scotland Water at Torrance, near Glasgow.

Amey-Donelon, which is the specialist tunnelling arm of the Amey Group, is producing a 3.7 km tunnel which has a diameter of 2.4 metres.

The first 2 km has now been completed and the whole project should be finished in a couple of months' time.

A pipejack drive of 530 metres through alluvial silts and sands was completed at up to 50 metres a day behind a Lovat tunnel boring machine. The skills used by the engineers have been built-up by the company over 40 years of tunnelling experience.

Amey-Donelon is also undertaking the adjacent Kelvin Valley Bishopbriggs link sewer contract - worth £6.3m - for the same client.

Oxfordshire-based Amey plc bought J.F. Donelon and Co Ltd as a going concern following last year's financial collapse and re-named it Amey-Donelon Ltd.

It now employs about 94 people. Amey is a well-known company through its motorway construction and other major civil engineering contracts.

West of Scotland Water serves more than 2.5 million customers and is the largest of the three new Scottish Water Companies.

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