It is a known fact that London has major sewage problems. According to Thames Water, 55 million tons of untreated sewage were flushed directly into the river last year. Thames Waters’s Phil Stride remarked, "London's main sewers were built a 150 years ago at a time when there were just over two million people living in the city. Now there are eight million."
Proposals are to build the 15-mile Thames Tideway Tunnel, which will run from Acton in west London to Abbey Mills in the east. It is designed to go 61 metres down, “deeper than all of London's existing underground infrastructure", and will run under 1,300 homes. If the plans get approved, it will be the deepest, longest and widest sewer in the UK, without the existence of which, London will flush about 70 million tons of raw sewage a year into the Thames by 2020.
The Development Consent Application is currently under the consideration of the Planning Inspectorate, and upon the approval of the scheme, its construction is expected to start in 2016.
The three main works packages are worth up to £2.25bn if each contract reaches its upper limit, however, Thames Water estimates the total value of the deals to be in the region of £1.6bn.
The construction works will take place on 24 sites across London, with the West contract worth around £300m - £500m, the Central contract worth around £600m - £950m and the East contract around £500m - £800m.
The shortlisted contractors will be bidding for one of more of the three work packages divided into geographical regions of West, Central and East. The four contractors chosen for the West contract will have to present their bids for the next stage of the process starting in mid November.
The managing director of the Thames Tunnel, Mike Gerrard, said:
“We are building for 22nd Century London to create a cleaner, healthier River Thames. The Thames Tideway Tunnel is needed to tackle the millions of tonnes of raw sewage, which discharge into the River Thames every year. The river needs cleaning up and it needs to be cleaned up now.
“It will be the biggest tunneling project ever undertaken in the UK’s water industry. We have shortlisted the contractors with the right expertise and experience, who will deliver the best value for money for our customers.
“We are following a rigorous tender process and are confident the successful tenderers are capable of delivering the project.”
Apart from environmental enhancements to the condition of the River Thames, the tunnel will create 9,000 more jobs not taking into account the 500 people who are already working on the project.
It is expected that the project will be financed and delivered by an independent Infrastructure Provider, with its own license from Ofwat. The finances for the project are in the process of being finalised by Thames Water, Government and Ofwat.
Following the receipt of Board-level letters of confirmation of commitment for the scheme, the shortlisted contracts are the following:
West
Bam Nuttall, Balfour Beatty, Morgan Sindall JV
Costain, Vinci, Bachy JV
Dragados, Samsung JV
Ferrovial Agroman, Laing O’Rourke JV
Central
Bam Nuttall, Balfour Beatty, Morgan Sindall JV
Costain, Vinci, Bachy JV
Ferrovial Agroman, Laing O’Rourke JV
Skanska, Bilfinger, Razel Bec JV
East
Bam Nuttall, Balfour Beatty, Morgan Sindall JV
Bechtel, Strabag JV
Bouygues Travaux Publics
Costain, Vinci, Bachy JV
Hochtief, Murphy JV