Concrete for the first permanent structures—utility galleries—at the U.K.’s first nuclear power project for some 30 years has been placed at the Somerset site of the 3,260 MW Hinkley Point C plant.

With construction of the first reactor building due to start in 2019, the project will consume  around three million tonnes of concrete and 230,000 metric tons of rebar. Six months after the owner, led by Eletricité de France, signed final contracts, the site team has shifted 3 million cubic meters of soil, begun work on a 500 m long jetty and erected the first two of 50 tower cranes while advancing other fronts.

Main civil construction will be by a joint venture of Bouygues Travaux Public S.A., Paris, and locally based Laing O’Rourke Construction  Ltd.