Construction group secures £20m London Underground contract

A joint venture between Warwickshire-based construction group, Morgan Sindall and BeMo Tunnelling has been awarded a £20m infrastructure contract.

The JV has been selected for a design and build project to construct a new workshop for London Underground’s Train Modification Unit (TMU) at its Acton Works depot in West London.

The project has been awarded following a mini-competition using London Underground’s Civils and Tunnelling Works framework which the Morgan Sindall BeMo joint venture secured a place on in December 2016.

The eight-year framework – anticipated to be worth £350m – is part of London Underground’s plans to upgrade its civil and tunnels assets as well its stations, with work packages including the construction of new station entrances, ticket halls and platforms including associated tunnelling and shaft works.

The Acton TMU project is expected to take 18 months to complete and consists of a new 160-metre long train maintenance building, incorporating four pitted rail tracks and an accommodation block providing welfare and office facilities for 100 staff.

The project also includes the installation of new tracks and turn outs that will connect into London Underground’s existing network. The joint venture team is working with one of Morgan Sindall’s sister companies, design and engineering company BakerHicks, on the design of the project.

Once complete, the depot will provide London Underground with the facilities required to deliver major packages of repair and upgrade works on its fleet of trains. The Central line fleet will be the first to be upgraded between 2019 and 2022, this forms part of the Central Line Improvement Programme (CLIP).

Andrew Jellis, managing director of Rail at Morgan Sindall, said: “We are delighted to be underway on our first project on this framework. We are looking forward to starting on site and setting the standard for our other works as this framework gathers pace.”