It has just been announced in the press that the Balfour Beatty – Morgan Sindall joint venture consortium is the winner of the lucrative £235 million Whitechapel and Liverpool Street Crossrail station tunnelling contract. Along with their consortium partners, Vinci and Alpine BeMo Tunnelling, the joint venture will start construction work in February of this year. Morgan Sindall and Balfour Beatty each have a 30% stake in the joint venture partnership.

The tunnelling contract is part of the large group of Crossrail £1.25 billion tunnelling contracts announced at the end of last year. The Whitechapel and Liverpool Street contract will cover construction of the Crossrail Station tunnels and all associated works and it will take five years to build the Crossrail Whitechapel and Liverpool Street stations.

Morgan Sindall and Balfour Beatty have both made announcements to express their delight at winning the large tunnelling contract. Paul Smith, Chief Executive of Morgan Sindall commented: “I am delighted that we have won this contract. The award demonstrates the Group’s leading edge skills in tunnel engineering and the fact that we are part of a very strong joint venture which has extensive construction capabilities.”

Speaking on behalf of Balfour Beatty, Ian Tyler, Chief Executive, said: “This contract will require a team with technical and resource capability, and a comprehensive understanding of both the local issues and the requirements of the key stakeholders involved. We are therefore delighted to have been awarded this prestigious project together with our joint venture partners.”

In total, the Crossrail station contracts will boost employment in the tunnel engineering sector and construction generally and are the most significant tunnelling contracts to be awarded since the Jubilee Line extension several years ago. A further bundle of Crossrail tunnel contracts will be announced later on this year. These include the major tunnelling contract for the Thames Tunnel between Plumstead and Woolwich, plus the tunnel portals and station platform tunnels.

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