Crossrail announced that it will be putting back the tenders on three major station projects to ease pressure on teams bidding for the projects, Building reported today.The company running the £14.5BN transport project for London stated that about £700M of the £1.5BN remaining station tenders may now be delayed until Easter 2012. The decision will affect three of the bigger station contracts – Bond Street, Tottenham Court Road and Liverpool Street stations.
This reportedly follows complaints from contractors bidding for the tunnel projects whose costs were overrunning due to the short bid time- it also meant that bids were being done concurrently, without the knowledge of whether they were being awarded other Crossrail contracts, which could have an impact on later bids.
Crossrail stated that ‘it has decided to stagger the issuing of Invitations to Tender, as this avoids the need for the construction industry to submit multiple bids for contracts within a short space of time.’ They did however underline that despite the delay in awarding the contracts, that the decision ‘would have no impact on the construction schedule.’
The winning bid for the £250M Paddington Crossrail station meantime, will be announced later this month Crossrail announced, ‘with intensive construction due to get underway by the end of the year.’ Shortlisted consortia are Balfour Beatty, Morgan Sindall and Vinci, BAM Nuttall, Ferrovial Agroman and Kier Construction, Carillion Construction Ltd, Costain Skanska JV, Laing O’Rourke and Strabag.
