Shipyard firm, Harland and Wolff Group has announced a new contract from a London based waste management operator, worth £8.5m to build an additional 10 new barges for duties on the River Thames.

The company which also has a fleet of tugs, the Cory Group, last year announced contracts to fabricate 23 barges in total for the group of companies which delivers waste management services across the UK capital.

At H&W’s main shipyard in Belfast was delivered in April the first of the 23 barge order, which was the first vessel in two decades to be launched from the shipyard on Queens Island.

The barge-building programme continues to proceed apace but is not exclusively centred at the Belfast shipyard as the work is been fulfilled across the Group’s facilities which includes two sites in Scotland, Arnish on the Isle of Lewis and Methil on the Firth of Forth of Firth

So far eight of the barges have been delivered to Cory and H&W is expected to complete the entire programme by 2025.

More from Belfast Telegraph on this extended barge-contract.