Fury over scrapped CTRL bridge project

Bidders are up in arms after Channel Tunnel Rail Link (CTRL) pulled the plug on its £7.5m, 15-month Ruckholt Road bridge contract 80% of the way through the tender assessment phase.

Costain, Morgan Est, a Mowlem/Laing jv and Skanska were in the running for the design and build contract, stumping up bid costs of around £20,000 each, when they were told a week ago that the contract was to be scrapped.

Work included the demolition of the original 100m-long multi-span steel bridge to be replaced with a new 46m-long single-span steel girder beam deck bridge to allow trains to pass under.

"We haven’t been given a full reason why it pulled the plug," one disgruntled bidder said. "One obvious reason is the lack of funds. We are furious as this contract has been costly to bid for."

A CTRL spokeswoman said: "There are two reasons why we will not now be rebuilding the Ruckholt Road bridge. The level of the tracks will now not be raised to reduce flood risk. The existing flood risk is now considered to be acceptable. We have also agreed with the government to reduce the loading gauge specification (the clearance requirement) such that clearance under the existing bridge is sufficient."

The road bridge was one of eight construction jobs at the £70m Temple Mills depot in east London. Other work packages on the depot, which will provide maintenance facilities for Eurostar trains, include a £16m roofing contract, £16m of track work, overhead line equipment, signalling works and security systems.

Invitations to tender for the contracts were due out this month, although the CTRL spokeswoman was unable to confirm if they had been released.

Bidders have now raised doubts about the delivery of the depot. But the spokeswoman said CTRL was "confident" that the cancellation of the bridge project would not be the beginning of the end for the depot scheme.