ELL rail contract awarded

[Deleted]

from BBC news:
Construction firms Balfour Beatty and Carillion have won a £363m contract to extend the East London rail line.

The project - expanding the network to the north and south - is a key plank in improving the capital's transport system ahead of the 2012 Olympics.

Work is set to start early next year and is due to be completed in 2010.

Part of a £10bn investment plan for London's transport, the project will see six miles of track being laid or replaced and four new stations built.

apparently Connect is costing £2bn to implement yet this is £363m!

[Deleted]

It's not really a fair comparison.

The East London Line Project is cut up in a number of smaller pieces with separate bidding. As far as I know this contract is only about the extensions north and south and only about new track and new stations. For instance, the bridges (21 on the Kingsland Viaduct alone!), the rolling stock and upgrading of the existing track and stations are not in this contract. Which is obvious because the construction for the ELL is well under way for about a year now I think. Considerable work has already been done on the Bishopsgate Goods Yard and viaduct and bridges along Shoreditch High Street and Kingsland Road. Works which are part of another contract.

The total costs of the ELL are at least £1bn. I'm not sure how the recent moving of the extension to Highbury & Islington from phase 2 to phase 1 may have further increased these costs though.

[compsci]

When I attended a presentation regarding the ELL extension I was told that many token works have had to be carried out in order to avoid the lapsing of planning consent, which was awarded some time ago.

The last thing they want is another legal mess given how long it takes to get planning permission for any rail project these days.

[Deleted]

I just read (in The London Paper I think it was) that the extension from Dalston Junction to Highbury & Islington is not part of this contract. That stretch was recently moved from Phase 2 to Phase 1 and was probably too late to put into this bidding.

[stanmorek]

East London Line team unveiled

Balfour Beatty and Carillion this week revealed the three construction bosses heading its joint venture to build the East London Line extension, after the contract was awarded last week.

Former ICE chief executive and Carillion employee Mike Casebourne will be project director, with Balfour Beatty men Adam Stuart and Andy Nettleton as construction director and engineering director respectively.

Previously Casebourne was acting as a project director on phase two of the Channel Tunnel Rail Link (CTRL), while Stuart was a project director at Metronet and Nettleton was working on tenders at Balfour Beatty’s head office.

They will run the main works contract for phase one of the project, worth £363M, after Balfour Beatty/Carillion beat rival consortium E-Link, consisting of Laing O'Rouke, Amec Spie and Vinci to the job.
(New Civil Engineer 12 October)

[stanmorek]

So TfL are happy to give more work to a main shareholder of Metronet then? It wasn't long ago that the Transport Commisioner was publicly airing his disatisfaction with them.

www.nceplus.co.uk/fastsearch/ArchiveArticleAssetPT/?AID=24719

[stanmorek]

For info


Metronet firms face fight for more TfL contracts

New Civil Engineer 09 November 2006


TRANSPORT FOR London said this week it would make good its threat to withhold work from Atkins, Balfour Beatty and Bombardier because of their failure to perform for the Metronet Tube upgrade consortium.

It said they would not win work with TfL unless they could prove that they would not be distracted from delivering improvements to the Underground.

"Will they continue to find it hard to win contracts with us?

Yes, they will, " said TfL commissioner Peter Hendy.

Atkins, Balfour Beatty and Bombardier Transportation along with EDF Energy and RWE Thames Water are Metronet's main shareholders. They also carry out the bulk of Metronet's much criticised upgrade work on the Tube.

Hendy has been an outspoken critic of Metronet. In June he said that he was prepared to publicly blame its shareholders for their failure to perform on Tube projects (NCE 8 June).

His comments this week came after Balfour Beatty secured the long-awaited main works contract for the £1bn East London Line extension in joint venture with Carillion (NCE 12 October).

Hendy said that the contract award was delayed because TfL had sought extra reassurances of Balfour Beatty's capabilities.

"We wanted to make damn sure that giving them [Balfour Beatty] another massive contract wouldn't mean that they f*ck up the massive contract they already have any more than they already are doing." Balfour Beatty said it had won the East London Line contract on merit.

"We had regular contact with Peter Hendy involving proper and appropriate dialogue. We tendered for the East London Line contract in our usual professional and thorough manner and we believe we won the contract on merit, " it said .

Work on the East London Line is being handled by a different Balfour Beatty division to that working for Metronet.

But Hendy insisted his approach was valid.

"The PPP was designed to get the assets into a good state of repair. If that means asking searching questions about the shareholders in Metronet if they tender for other work then we will do it.

"Ask Atkins, Balfour Beatty or Bombardier if they feel comfortable and they will probably say 'no'. To which I say, good." Hendy fears that if Metronet continues to underperform, vital government funds for Underground upgrades will be withdrawn. The Tube PPP contracts and funding come up for review in 2009, and the government has the option of withdrawing further funds if it is dissatisfied with progress, "Our concern is that if they get [the Tube contractors] behind now, it gives the government the excuse not to fund the second seven and a half year period, " he said.

The 30 year PPP programme is split into seven and a half year chunks. The second period includes several major signalling and track upgrades which will signifi ntly increase capacity on the network.

"If we could scrap the PPP contracts we would but they are 30 year contracts which LU and the private sector consortia have signed up to. Primary legislation would be required and the costs of buying out these contracts would be significant.

Metronet said that it was working hard to deliver to its contract and added that all its major capital programmes aside from station upgrades were on or ahead of programme.

(Read a full interview with Peter Hendy on page 26).

Peter Hendy is delivering the Second Scott Wilson Transport Lecture A Vision for London's Transport System at the ICE on Monday.




The full interview
www.nceplus.co.uk/b_bank/search_results_details/?report_ID=7126&report_num=0&channelid=6

[Phil]

Trouble is, they're stuck for choice over contractors. ALL the current rail 'maintainers' (for want of a better word) have had, or still have, 'issues' either with LU or NR, and to invite in a new civil engineering company with no experience of rail contracts is just asking for trouble.

I suppose it's a case of 'better the devil you know'.

Mind you, if BB still want to be taken seriously for future contracts elswhere they've damn well GOT to get this one right, and perhaps this was what was in TfL's mind. If they screw this one up they're done for as a company for good, so one assumes the shareholders will exert positive (not just financial) pressure.

[Deleted]

I'm sure there are plenty of contractors at least as experienced as these are on the continent willing and able to do the job. It's not very wise from a political point of view though. Voters don't like "jobs going to foreign companies". That makes it not very likely to happen.

I think this is actually all business politics. It's very hard to break up any of these PPP contracts, it would be a lengthy, very costly and ultimately unwise thing to do. Moreover, LU will be in big trouble if they do get out of it because someone else has to do the work instead of Metronet which means considerable delays and extra costs because LU is in a tight spot and the new contractor knows that.

When it is so hard to do anything about the contract itself or the relationship between LU and Metronet the only other option is to make life for its shareholders miserable by pressure outside of the contract. If LU starts a huge row through the press about these companies not living up to expectation the companies will feel it when negotiating other contracts. If Balfour Beatty is negotiating a big contract for Manchester while the press is full of stories about them messing up London Manchester will think twice. Hendy knows that.

[stanmorek]

Balfour Beatty and Atkins do a lot of work on Network Rail without this much trouble.

Metronet inherited what were the infracos and the pace of restructuring required is distracting key people. There are too many people with little or no LU experience are coming in. There is too much fragmentation creating gaps in responsibilities. However, LU aren't doing enough. All I see is a lot of meetings at senior level where nothing is agreed only lots of paper signing. Only once has someone from LU has visited me on site and knew anything about engineering asking about the work and offering useful advice. My boss says they won't do inspections on nights or weekends.

And I do feel that Hendy's approach smacks of desperation.

Every contractor with NR experience I've talked to have commented that working on LU is completely different and that they haven't known anything like it. This includes contractors who have done numerous bridge replacements for NR.