The Group

Joseph Gallagher Ltd (JGL) is currently the largest tunnelling subcontractor in the UK whilst also providing an unrivalled service to the civil engineering and structural concrete arena. The general civil engineering side of the business now provides 50% of the company's turnover. Founded by Joseph Gallagher in 1982, the business has the same strong work ethic it had on day one and Josie remains at the helm as Chairman, although day to day running of the business is now handled by the board and led by Steve Harvey, Group Managing Director.

Josie has handpicked the personnel he has brought into the group to ensure that the original drive and technical capability, which has always been the hallmark of the business, has not been diluted. Now as part of a £70 million turnover group, the Tunnelling Division remains the core business around which the rest of the Group has been built. The Joseph Gallagher Group consists of a number of businesses that complement the core activity of tunnelling and civil engineering:

Joseph Gallagher is now the largest tunnelling subcontractor in the UK as well as a main contractor in its own right. Amongst many others, the Company has worked on projects such as The Channel Tunnel Rail Link, various London Underground Projects, Hindhead Tunnel, and Crossrail projects at Mile End and the Connaught Tunnel.

Johnston Trenchless Solutions (JTS) is a division which was purchased from Carillion in November 2010 which tends to do smaller contracts nationwide and outside of London and the South East as well as specialist microtunnelling and directional drilling contracts using group owned specialist plant. JTS is only a trading name, JGL is the contracting entity.

Joseph Gallagher Limited build basements and concrete frames for selected clients. This business was entered into in order to ensure continuity for key personnel during periods of downturn in the tunnelling sphere of operation. Joseph Gallagher also operates in the Middle East using Iseki Microtunnelling equipment owned by the Joseph Gallagher Group.

NRC Plant Ltd (NRC) established in 1953 and purchased by The Joseph Gallagher Group in 1997 is the second largest crawler crane hire business in the UK. The Company has a fleet of 75 crawler cranes ranging from 5 tonne to 150 tonne capacity.

Specialist Plant Associates (SPA) purchased by The Joseph Gallagher Group in 1990 and now incorporating Iseki Microtunnelling (IM), is a specialist tunnelling and ventilation equipment hire business. SPA is the only company in the UK to own and operate Compressed Air tunnelling equipment for rental.

The Company was formed and is owned by Joseph Gallagher who has created and developed the business in his own image as a hardworking, honest, client focused entity. The business has never lost a client or had a formal dispute in 34 years of operation. The business has been successfully run over the years by Joseph and hand-picked individuals he has recruited along the way. This situation continues despite the size the Company has now reached.

Scope of Works/Resources

The company carries out most of its work with directly employed resources and equipment. We have all the equipment required to carry out Civil Engineering and Tunnelling works and the specialist personnel required in house. We carry out all forms of non-disruptive construction using our own personnel and equipment. Very little of our work is subcontracted and normally only for very specialist activities such as waterproofing application, diamond core drilling or similar which are usually low value and small elements of our works.

Contract values range from as little as £10,000 to £30 million and the organisation is flexible enough to deal with values within this range and above it. Contracts are either major packages for management contractors, major subcontracts or main contracts in their own right, wherein we are the Principal Contractor.

Much of our works are water related wherein we provide design and construction solutions as well as construction of designs by others. Wastewater tanks, pumping stations, tunnels, pipelines as well as clean water rising mains have all been constructed for various water companies including Yorkshire Water, Welsh Water, Thames Water, Severn Trent, Anglian, Scottish Water and Wessex Water amongst others

The business employs almost 900 personnel and owns tunnelling equipment from 300mm diameter to 3.6m diameter as well as excavators, cranes and all ancillary construction plant associated with the Civil Engineering industry

Culture/Values

A major part of the business is our behavioural safety culture that is at the core of everything the business does and revolves around the application of exceptional leadership and mutual respect.