HS2 awards £900m of enabling works

HS2 Ltd has announced the winners for three contracts worth a combined £900m for enabling works on phase one of the high-speed rail project.

The enabling works packages were split between the northern, central and southern parts of the phase one route, with each contract worth £300m.

Joint venture partners Costain and Skanska have scooped the southern contract, while a JV comprising Morgan Sindall, Bam and Ferrovial has won the central contract with Laing O’Rourke and Murphy picking up the northern deal.

As well as archaeology, site clearance and establishing site compounds, the contractors will also deliver activities including utility diversions, ecology surveys, demolition, ground remediation, watercourse activities, highways realignments, monitoring and instrumentation, structural reinforcements and drainage work.

As Building previously reported, the awarding of the enabling works contracts has been delayed by three months, with bidders initially expecting a decision in August.

Enabling work is expected to start in the spring.

In addition to awarding the contracts, the government has also set out its preferred route for phase two of HS2 from Crewe to Manchester and the West Midlands to Leeds.  

The western leg of phase two will go on from Crewe to Manchester Airport and then Manchester city centre, where a new station will be built next to Manchester Piccadilly station.

The eastern leg will continue from the West Midlands to Toton in the East Midlands, where a new HS2 station will be built to serve Nottingham, Derby and the wider region.

It will then continue north from the East Midlands to South Yorkshire.

A spur will take passengers to Sheffield city centre, but the proposed site of a new station in Sheffield is still to be decided.