£520m design contracts awarded to firm of HS2 boss

Design contracts for high speed rail worth around £520m have been awarded to the company of HS2 interim director Roy Hill.

It emerged at the end of last year that the company that Hill worked for, US-headquartered engineering company CH2M, was bidding for hundreds of millions of pounds worth of work on HS2.

Hill worked for CH2M as managing director before being seconded to the interim position at HS2 following the departure of Simon Kirby, who left for a top job at Rolls-Royce.

CH2M also led a consortium last year which won contracts for the London to Birmingham line.

HS2 said it had undergone a competitive 11-month tender process with seven multinational bidders.

Now CH2M will be signed on as part of the project from 20 February as a Phase 2b development partner, working on the route from Crewe to the North.

It will join up with teams from Arup, AECOM / Capita / INECO and Mott MacDonald / WSP and provide the expert engineering and environmental support to take forward the development of the route north of Crewe to Manchester and from the West Midlands to Yorkshire.

A ‘hybrid Bill’  which would essentially be the planning application for this part of the route, will go before Parliament in 2019.

The dedicated high speed lines are planned to open in 2033.

Alison Munro, HS2 Ltd Managing director – development, said: “This contract awards mark an important milestone for HS2 – giving us the expert resource needed to progress the second phase of the project and bring high speed rail to Manchester and Leeds by 2033.

“Our new partners bring a wealth of recent experience on some of the world’s most challenging and complex infrastructure projects and I look forward to working with them to ensure that HS2 can benefit from the experience and innovation they have to offer.”

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