Contractors gear up for £400m Thames Tideway project

The Thames Tideway scheme, labelled a ‘super sewer’, will eventually comprise 24 miles of tunnels and include London’s deepest tunnel 75m below the Thames.

The Thames Tunnel, the larger of the two, will follow the path of the river roughly 20 miles from west London to Beckton Sewage Treatment Works.

Work on planning this tunnel is still at an early stage, with the entry and exit points, exact route and works sites still unknown. Construction is provisionally scheduled to start in 2012 and finish in 2020.

Thames Water announced four bidders for the second tunnel in January. The Lee Tunnel will run four miles from east London to Beckton. Construction is due to start later this year, pending planning permission.

The four bidders are: FCC; Laing O’Rourke/Impregilo joint venture; Morgan Est/Vinci/Bachy joint venture; and Murphy/Hochtief joint venture. The £400m project is the water company’s largest-ever single contract.

Phil Stride, head of London Tideway Tunnels at Thames Water, explains: “We’ll now go through a vigorous assessment programme to shortlist bidders to construct the Lee Tunnel and, pending planning approval, we hope to award contracts later this year.”