ANOTHER Bolton company has a major involvement in the massive new airport project at Hong Kong. As previously reported, Watson Steel at Lostock - part of AMEC - is working on a £30m steelwork contract for the Chep Lap Kok project. Now, Leigh's Paints of Kestor Street have announced that they are providing most of the advanced coating systems for the immense bridges being built.

They carry road and rail links from downtown Hong Kong to Lantau Island, where the new airport is being built in a joint British, Chinese and Japanese venture.

It will replace overburdened Kai Tak in Kowloon.

Leigh's Paints gained the lion's share of the contracts following years of preparation and investment.

One or more container loads of paints are currently leaving Bolton each week. Company personnel are spending a lot of time in Hong Kong advising fabricators and painting contractors at eight different construction sites, including the roof steelwork at Chek Lap Kok supplied by Watson Steel.

But most of the work so far has focussed on the Tsing Ma suspension bridge, the heaviest steel bridge ever built.

Leigh's have also bid recently for the coatings contract for the Ting Kau cable stayed composite road bridge which joins the new highways serving the airport to the mainland and Guangzhou.

The new airport, which is due to be completed in time for Hong Kong's hand-over to the Chinese in 1997, will be the world's most modern and one of the biggest.

Converted for the new archive on 14 July 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.