EC Harris and Turner & Townsend retain role to manage £3.5bn construction programme

Davis Langdon has been dropped from BAA’s five-year managed service provider framework in what is thought to be the first major contract loss the consultant has suffered since it was bought by Aecom in August.

UK airports operator BAA has appointed EC Harris, Turner & Townsend, Mott MacDonald, and Jacobs in consortium with Cyril Sweett to the framework, which will support the management of the whole of BAA’s construction programme at Heathrow. This is thought to be worth a minimum of £15m a year across the framework in fees to manage a £3.5bn, five-year programme.

It is absolutely mission-critical to win this work, and it would have been an body blow to lose it

Jacobs and Mott MacDonald are new to the reshaped framework, which previously called for a traditional cost-control and commercial management role. Doig + Smith was another consultant to be dropped.

BAA’s recently recruited programme control director Stephen Livingstone advertised through the OJEU and received 11 bids. The contract is for three years, with two possible extensions of a year each. The consultants will carry out project control, risk management, change management, quality assurance and document control, as well as the more traditional QS services.

EC Harris and T&T will share work on the £2.5bn Terminal 2 for the Star Alliance airlines. Mott will work on infrastructure and Jacobs will focus on the western campus at Terminals 3 and 4.

A source close to the bidders said: “It is absolutely mission-critical for the consultants to win this work, and equally it will be an absolute body blow for those who have lost it.
“It’s important particularly because the way the contract is set up is the way the industry is going right now.”

Davis Langdon’s loss comes amid concerns about the firm’s £204m purchase in August by US engineering giant Aecom.

A number of big clients, including Stanhope’s Peter Rogers and Gary Wingrove at BT, have expressed concerns over the sale.

It also comes as former Mouchel boss Steve Morriss was appointed Aecom’s European chief executive officer with responsibility for Davis Langdon.

These changes are the latest shake-up of partners at BAA since it appointed Steve Morgan as its capital director in January 2009, who immediately tore up its £6.6bn contractor framework.

BAA and Aecom were unavailable for comment.

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