Crossrail awards £500m station contracts

UK contractors Balfour Beatty, Kier and Morgan Sindall are among those to benefit from the £650m latest raft of major Crossrail station contracts.

The awards, for the main works to the Farringdon and Whitechapel Crossrail stations, will also see the UK civil engineering arm of the Dutch Royal Bam Group, Bam Nuttall, and the UK arm of French construction giant Vinci winning roles on the schemes.

The Farringdon station job, worth up to £400m, has been let to a joint venture of Bam Nuttall, Ferrovial Agroman (UK) and Kier Construction. The Whitechapel station works, worth £110m, has been let to a consortium including Balfour Beatty Civil Engineering, Morgan Sindall and Vinci Construction UK.

Crossrail said “intensive construction” will get under way early in the new year.

The contracts will boost UK contractors facing a grim outlook for public work in 2012. A number of major firms, including Bam, Balfour Beatty and Morgan Sindall, have all restructured in the last few months.

The awards mean that contracting teams including Costain, Skanska, Laing O’Rourke, Strabag, Dragados and Sisk all missed out on the jobs. All of these, apart from Strabag, are still involved in tenders for the remaining £700m of major station contracts for Liverpool Street, Bond Street, and Tottenham Court Road stations. Costain and Skanska recently shared the £250m Paddington station job.

Andy Mitchell, Crossrail programme director, said: “High quality bids were received for both stations. Crossrail contracts continue to generate significant interest.”