Keep up to date with all the latest developments across Transport & Infrastructure. Check out our latest roundup of major contracts that have been awarded in the past 3 months…

Water

Yorkshire Water

Contractors have been alerted to £2.8bn of work for Yorkshire Water. The work, covering April 2025 to May 2030, is divided into two frameworks valued at £1.3bn and £1.5bn.

The £1.5bn framework will cover non-infrastructure works across Yorkshire, including construction, design, civil engineering and process works. The £1.3bn framework will cover design and civil engineering works and could also be extended to cover AMP9.

Southern Water

Have selected five contractors for its AMP8 framework for medium non-infrastructure works. The contractors that have won a place on the £600m framework are;

• Galliford Try
• Barhale
• Binnies UK/WGM Engineering Joint Venture
• Bridges Electrical Engineers
• Ward & Burke Construction

Thames Water

Thames Water has appointed six contractors on the first lot of winners made public under its Waste Network Services framework.

The £139m Lot 5 deal covers high value proactive and reactive emergency repairs on both the gravity and pressurised wastewater network across the Thames Water Utilities operations area. The six winners are;

• Barhale
• Cappagh Contractors
• Clancy Docwra
• J Browne
• McAllister Bros
• Morrison Water Services

The deal runs for a minimum of five years with an option to extend for a further three years.

Northumbrian Water

Have named five partners on new frameworks to help improve delivery of capital investment projects.

Stantec and Jacobs were named as NWG’s new strategic technical partners, as well as lead commercial consultants Turner & Townsend, with support from Aqua Consultants and Long O’Donnell Associates.

Portsmouth Water

Have awarded £208m worth of contracts to two companies for the creation of a flagship reservoir in South Hampshire, which will hold 8.7 billion litres of water once completed in 2029.

The £167m contract to build the Havant Thicket Reservoir was awarded to to Future Water MJJV Limited and a further £41m was awarded to Ward & Burke Construction Limited, who will create a tunnelled pipeline.

Rail

Network Rail – Southern Integrated Delivery (SID)

Four partners have been selected to join Network Rail’s Works Delivery team in forming an innovative, performance-based enterprise model to deliver the Southern Region’s up-to £9 billion estimated renewals portfolio over the next ten years. These four partners will include;

• VolkerFitzpatrick for Buildings and Civils
• Octavius for Electrification and Plant
• VolkerRail for Track
• Atkins for Signalling

These partners will cover for the period of Control Period 7 (2024-2029) and Control Period 8 (2029-34).

The Southern Region is also in the process of tendering for 16 contractors for a new minor works framework. The deadline has passed for requests to participate, with invitations to tender expected to go out in the summer.

Network Rail – North West & Central

The North West and Central region has divided its capital delivery works into categories A to D. Category A is a £490M framework for large works, B is a £695M framework for medium projects, C is £358M and for small to medium projects and D is a £229M framework for minor works and reactive response service. Categories B to D are currently in live procurement, with contract awards expected in the autumn. Category A has only had a PIN issued, but the opportunity is expected to be opened very shortly, with a contract award expected in early 2024.

Network Rail – Eastern

The Eastern region had a false start in its procurement for CP7, having started the process of establishing a £4bn renewals and minor enhancements framework last April, only to then cancel it. It has in the last few weeks launched the tender process for its Eastern Routes Partnership framework, worth £3.5bn. Network Rail is currently engaging in briefings for interested contractors and the deadline for expressions of interest is 2 June. It is expected that invitations to tender will be sent at the end of July.

HS2

Despite the pause on work on parts of HS2 announced last month, HS2 has said it will be holding market engagement events this summer as it will be releasing contracts including some related to highway works and associated ancillary packages, such as surfacing, kerbing and paving.

There will also be new contract opportunities for earthworks, minor civils and road works within the urban realm.

The Phase 1 rail systems contracts, which are currently in evaluation, are predicted to be announced early next year, although the HS2 website is still showing an award date of Q2 2023.

Dublin MetroLink

Transport Infrastructure Ireland (TII) appointed Atkins, supported by sub consultants RPS, to deliver the detailed design for the advance works programme for Dublin MetroLink project.

Tenders are also in for the Client Partner contract which is currently being evaluated and expected to be let later this year.

GB Railfreight

Following the order secured last year to build and supply 30 Class 99 bi-mode Co’Co locomotives, Stadler has signed a contract with GB Railfreight to provide full service for this rolling stock. Stadler will be responsible for all aspects of service and maintenance of the 30 Class 99 bi-mode locomotives.

Great Western Railway

Great Western Railway (GWR), Eversholt Rail, and Hitachi Rail have announced an extension of their maintenance partnership. Worth over £300 million, the contract extension is to maintain the GWR West of England fleet of 36 Class 802 Intercity Express Trains until 2028.

Energy

Keltbray

Have won a number of packages to deliver critical energy infrastructure for key energy Distribution Network Operators and renewable energy companies. The contracts successfully secured include:

• UK Power Networks multi-year distribution framework contract for the refurbishment and replacement of the distribution infrastructure from low voltage to 33kV networks in the Eastern region.
• Northern Ireland Electricity Networks multi-year framework for the maintenance refurbishment and replacement of the distribution overhead line network from low voltage to 33kV.
• Scottish Power Energy Networks multi-year framework for low voltage services modernisation, including the replacement of looped services that will enable the network to be able to respond to the additional requirements that will be driven by the sustainability and carbon reduction agenda.
• SSEN Distribution multi-year framework for the maintenance, refurbishment and replacement of the distribution overhead line network from low voltage to 33kV in the north of Scotland.
• Harmony Energy for the design and construction of two Battery Energy Storage Sites to be built in Yorkshire and Teesside in 2023. The two sites combined will have the capacity to store over 90MW of electricity.
• Lostock Sustainable Energy Plant structural steel package for the main boiler house, as part of a new-build Energy from Waste facility near Northwich in Cheshire that will, when fully operational, export 70MW of electricity to the grid using residual waste, meeting the energy needs of 148,000 homes.
• Northern Powergrid upgrade overhead lines; building new infrastructure as well as refurbishing and replacing existing assets across Yorkshire, north Lincolnshire and the Humber Estuary.

National Gas Transmission

Five firms have won a place on the asset health framework potentially worth hundreds of millions of pounds over the RIIO T2 and T3 investment programmes. The five firms selected for the long-term deal are:

• United Living
• Morrison Energy Services
• Murphy
• Mott MacDonald Bentley
• Bilfinger

National Grid – Electricity Transmission

Following a market engagement exercise earlier this year, NGET is preparing and finalising procurement documents for the New Infrastructure Onshore Delivery Programme (NIODP), with the expected launch of the qualification process being late May/early June 2023.

Sellafield

Have begun the race to find four key infrastructure partners as part of the ongoing procurement shake-up at the nuclear decommissioning site.

The new model will replace the present Infrastructure Services Alliance with Morgan Sindall and Arup with a new overseeing team. The organisational shake-up will see a new overall strategic partner appointed, who will be supported by three key delivery partners covering specific electrical distribution, utilities, and civils disciplines.

Firms selected for the new Infrastructure Delivery Partnership will oversee a £2bn-3bn programme of projects at the nuclear site over 15 years.

Coire Glas

SSE Renewables has awarded Fugro a ground investigation contract for its Coire Glas hydro pumped storage scheme located in the Great Glen, Scotland.

The selection of the preferred civils tenderer, who will work with the chosen mechanical and electrical tenderer to construct Coire Glas on a turnkey basis, is scheduled for autumn 2023.

Scottish Power

Have formalised a £1.3billion contract with Siemens Gamesa for 95 wind turbines for the East Anglia Three offshore windfarm. The 95 flagship 14.7MW turbines will have a combined capacity of 1,400MW, generating enough green energy to meet the annual demand of 1.3million homes.

Highways

Suffolk Highways

Milestone Infrastructure has been awarded Suffolk County Council’s new highways services contract worth up to £1bn. The contract will last up to 20 years and Milestone will replace current incumbent Kier in October.

London Borough of Camden

Marlborough Highways and FM Conway have each obtained £53.6m multi-year contracts from the London Borough of Camden for road maintenance and improvements. Marlborough Highways will cover the north of the borough and FM Conway the south. The five-year contract will begin on 1 April with an option to extend it for another three years.

Leicestershire County Council

Galliford Try has been appointed to an £85m contract with Leicestershire County Council to build the new North East Melton Mowbray Distributor Road.

Buckinghamshire Council

Have announced the 12 approved contractors who will be working on highways, maintenance and infrastructure projects within the county from 1 April 2023.

Last year Balfour Beatty Living Places (BBLP) were awarded the council’s Term Maintenance Contract and the Term Consultancy Contract was awarded to Atkins. The 12 newly-appointed contractors will work alongside BBLP and Atkins to carry out the works needed, under new Framework 1 and Framework 2 contracts which will run for a period of four years. The full list can be found here.

Building

Ministry of Defence

A landmark contract for the defence estate has been signed, signalling the start of a new delivery alliance for the Ministry of Defence and seven major contractors. The selected partners will deliver the £5.1bn defence estate optimisation programme. They are: Galliford Try, ISG, Graham, Kier, Laing O’Rourke, Lendlease Construction and Morgan Sindall.

Southern Construction Framework (SCF Construct)

Kier, Tilbury Douglas and Morgan Sindall have each scooped four spots on the Southern Construction Framework (SCF Construct) for the South West, the South East and London, which cover work worth more than £4m each. The trio also took spots on a £1m-£5m job lot covering the south-west of England. The framework replaces a £5.25bn four-year iteration that ends this year. The full list can be found here.

The framework is a joint initiative between Hampshire County Council and Devon County Council and can be used by all public bodies across the South of England.

Ready to Secure Top Talent? Reach out by emailing [email protected] or calling 0203 026 3871 to discuss your needs.