Foster and partners' outline design for St Pancras, which is to be the central London terminal of the Channel Tunnel Rail Link, will now be carried through to detailed design by the public–private partnership's in-house architectural team.
Two other stations in the high-speed link, at Stratford and Ebbsfleet, are also being designed by the PPP team.

The contract for the £1.5bn final phase of the high-speed rail link was signed last week by deputy prime minister John Prescott and PPP London & Continental Railways.

Rail Link Engineering, the project management and design department of London & Continental Railways, is a consortium of the PPP's engineering shareholders, including the USA's largest contractor, Bechtel, as well as Arup, Sir William Halcrow and Systra.

The architectural section within Rail Link Engineering is headed by Alastair Lansley, who designed Ashford Eurostar station while at Nick Derbyshire Architects.

Construction will begin on large-scale commercial developments at St Pancras, Stratford and in Kent as the rail link nears completion.

Masterplanners for St Pancras and Stratford are John McAslan & Partners and Arup Associates respectively.

The project is due for completion in 2007.

  • A DETR official said this week that the £1.7bn first phase of the Channel Tunnel Rail Link, from Dover to the Thames, would be six months late, largely because of the wet weather.