Three joint ventures will continue upgrading London's Victorian sewers and water mains

Thames Water has awarded £1.2bn of work to three joint ventures who will continue the replacement of London's Victorian pipes.

The three winners are Optimise (J Murphy & Sons/Clancy Docwra/Barhale/MWH), MGJV (Morrison and Galliford Try) and GBM (Galliford Try/Biwater/Mott MacDonald).

The work will comprise replacing London's Victorian water mains, upgrading sewers to protect homes from being flooded, improving water and sewage works, and extending water and sewerage networks to future residential developments.

Martin Baggs, chief executive of Thames Water, said: “In our continued drive to be more efficient for our 13 million customers we've completely changed the way we do our work. Instead of letting numerous small contracts to lots of providers, we're working with leading organisations to deliver the 'base load' of our investment programme for the next five years.

“The way we've structured these programmes of work will also allow our contractors to plan further ahead and give them greater incentives to be efficient on cost and time.”

One contract has still to be awarded. An announcement is expected within the next fortnight.