Tottenham Court Road bidders asked to revise tenders

Contractors pitching for the £500m makeover of London's Tottenham Court Road have been asked to revise bids for the project by Transport for London (TfL).

This latest moves comes hot on the heels of TfL giving the five teams contesting the scheme a six-week tender-submission extension earlier this year.

The line-up for the station revamp consists of solo bidders Balfour Beatty, Morgan Est and Taylor Woodrow, plus a Skanska/Mace joint venture and a team made up of Costain/Laing O'Rourke/Bachy Soletanche.

A winning bidder was originally expected to emerge this month.

Sources fear the decision to change the scope of job is based on TfL not wanting to spend as much money as it had previously allocated for the first 30 months of the scheme.

But TfL said that the contract award would still go-ahead as planned under its revised timetable in December and that the extension of the scope would increase the project works.

An insider said: "But for the contractors tendering the project, that is little consolation. A rebid of this scale is a drain on resources - both human and financial - and firms could have done without it."

He continued: "Clients have got contractors over a barrel in these hard times. They know that many firms will jump through various hoops if they think there is a chance of winning a big contract."

Contractors fear the Tottenham Court Road could be heading down the same bumpy track as the proposed £695m revamp of London's Victoria Station, which was also rebid by Balfour Beatty/Morgan Est, BAM Nuttall/Taylor Woodrow and Costain/Laing O'Rourke/Bachy Soletanche.

London Mayor Boris Johnson has said that the scheme will be put back by at least a year, while some warn that the £9m the contractors have laid out between them in bidding for the Victoria Station deal will have to be recouped if the project is scrapped altogether.

TfL is facing funding problems after the collapse of Metronet and a fall in the number of commuters caused by the recession.

To make matters worse, last month TfL withdrew and then rescoped its £300m maintenance framework, which had reached the prequalification stage.

A spokesperson for Transport for London said: “The contract for the redevelopment of Tottenham Court Tube station will be awarded in late 2009 as planned with main construction works underway in early 2010.

He said that shortlisted organisations have not been asked to re-bid the contract but London Underground had extended the scope of the project and updated bidders through a recently issued tender addendum.

He added: “Changes to the scope of the project include the replacement of existing escalators, management of Oxford Street utilities settlement mitigation works and changes to some aspects of the design to facilitate a more advantageous future over site development. Significant progress at the Tottenham Court Road site continues to be made.

"Funding for the redevelopment of Tottenham Court Road station was reconfirmed last month in TfL’s new business plan, " he added:

"Demolition work at the Astoria site is now almost complete, which means that preparatory work for the neighbouring Goslett Yard demolitions can now be accelerated and will get underway shortly and therefore this demolition work will now be excluded from the contract.”