Final bids submitted for Mersey Gateway
FINAL tenders for the £600m Mersey Gateway Bridge have been submitted by three shortlisted bidders to Halton Borough Council.
The project team said it will now spend the next few weeks assessing the bids against a set of detailed criteria, “that focuses on both quality and value for money”.
The winning bidder, to be announced in June, will take on a 30-year contract to design, build, finance and operate a toll bridge over the River Mersey between Runcorn and Widnes.
The shortlisted bidders include a Balfour Beatty-led team including French group Bouygues and Egis Projects, the Merseylink Consortium and the MGL consortium.
Rob Polhill, leader of Halton Borough Council, said: “The council has been convinced throughout the development of this project that we could put together a commercial package that would be attractive to potential partners and would deliver a fair deal for the public purse. The fact that we have three complete bids on the table shows we are now well on the way to delivering that.”
Steve Nicholson, project director for the Mersey Gateway Project, said: “I’d like to thank all three bidding teams and my colleagues working on behalf of Halton Borough Council for their hard work and attention to detail over the last 18 months. The next few weeks will be spent looking very closely at every detail of the three separate proposals and we will be focusing on quality and value for money to ensure we get the best deal for Halton and the public purse.”
