£650m Crossrail station contracts awarded

Two separate contractor joint ventures have been awarded the prestigious jobs for the main works to the Farringdon and Whitechapel Crossrail stations.

The Farringdon station job, worth up to £400m, has been let to a joint venture consisting of BAM Nuttall, Ferrovial Agroman (UK) & Kier Construction. The Whitechapel station works, worth a maximum of £250m, has been let to a consortium including Balfour Beatty Civil Engineering, Morgan Sindall & Vinci Construction UK.

The organisation said “intensive construction” will get underway early in the new year. According to the Crossrail website the jobs are together worth between £350m and £650m.

The awards mean that contracting teams including Costain, Skanska, Laing O’Rourke, Strabag, Dragados and Sisk have all missed out on the jobs. However all of these, with the exception of Strabag, are still involved in tenders for the remaining £700m of major station contracts for Liverpool Street, Bond Street, and Tottenham Court Road stations.

Andy Mitchell, Crossrail programme director, said: “Crossrail contracts continue to generate significant construction industry interest. As with the Paddington station contract earlier this year, high quality bids were received for both Farringdon and Whitechapel stations. The main construction contracts for Bond Street, Tottenham Court Road and Liverpool Street stations will be awarded in 2012.

“Work is progressing along the Crossrail route ahead of tunnelling starting next spring. Manufacture of our tunnel boring machines is advancing, the first of the tunnel portals is now complete and the new Tunnelling and Underground Construction Academy has welcomed its first students.”

In July Building revealed that Crossrail was intending to delay the award of the Tottenham Court Road, Liverpool Street and Bond Street station contracts in order to prevent congestion in contractors bidding teams.