Thames Tideway names companies set to take £2.3bn in contracts

Thames Tideway Tunnel on Friday revealed the main contractors expected to pick up contracts worth a total of £2.3 billion for the construction of the super sewer.

The preferred bidder for the west section of the project worth £300-£500 million is BMB, a joint venture of BAM Nuttall, Morgan Sindall, and Balfour Beatty Group.

The contract for the central section worth £600-£900 million is expected to be awarded to FLO, a joint venture of Ferrovial Agroman UK, Laing O’Rourke Construction.

Finally, the eastern section contracts worth £500-£800 million have been extended to CVB a joint venture of Costain, Vinci Construction Grands Projects, and Bachy Soletanche.

The contracts are expected to be awarded in the summer. At the same time Thames Tideway will reveal the details of the infrastructure provider and investors in the project.

Preliminary work on the tunnel is then expected to start next year, with the main tunnelling operations due to start in 2017 and completion set for 2023.

Thames Tideway Tunnel chief executive Andy Mitchell said: “We have selected our preferred bidders to work on the three main works packages because we have absolute faith in their ability to carry out these major pieces of work safely, considerately and sustainably and we are looking forward to working with them to offer the thousands of jobs that will help make this project a reality.”

The super sewer was granted a development consent order in September last year and it will run 25km along the River Thames between Acton and Abbey Mills and intercept 34 combined sewer overflows.

It will divert their surface water and sewage discharge to a wastewater treatment facility rather than allowing it to discharge directly into the river.

A failure to tackle the sewage overflow into River Thames after periods of heavy or intense rainfall would leave UK facing EU fines of up to £100 million a year.

To help fund the construction of the super sewer, Thames Water has said consumer water bills would increase bya maximum of £80 a year.