TfL confirm winning contractor for the Bakerloo line link

London Underground (LU) has today announced its intention to award the contract to design and build the Paddington link tunnel, which will link the new Crossrail station and the Bakerloo line platforms, to Costain Skanska Joint Venture.

The contract to build the Paddington link tunnel is worth approximately £40m and follows an innovative procurement process set by LU, which was successfully used on the Bank Station Upgrade contract signed in 2013. 

The procurement process, known as the Innovative Contractor Engagement (ICE) model, assesses the bids made by contractors for the value that their proposal adds to the project. 

The winning bid by Costain Skanska Joint Venture will enhance the value of the Bakerloo line link by 25 per cent, mainly through reducing passenger journey timescompared with initial designs, and it will help to reduce the level of disruption caused to customers while the link is built. 

David Waboso, LU’s Director of Capital Programmes, said: “This is the second successful application of the ICE procurement approach, providing both our customers and our business with significantly enhanced value. Increasingly, ICE is allowing the market to provide us with better value infrastructure than traditional approaches.”

Simon Wright, Crossrail Programme Director, said: “Crossrail is now 60 per cent complete and we are on time and within budget. The Bakerloo line link, being delivered by London Underground, is an integral part of Crossrail. When complete, Crossrail will significantly reduce journey times from Paddington to the West End, the City and Docklands. From Paddington, passengers will be able to reach Tottenham Court Road in four minutes, Liverpool Street in ten minutes and Canary Wharf in 17 minutes.”

Paddington is one of the busiest stations on the Tube network and to alleviate the demand additional passengers will place on existing infrastructure once Crossrail arrives, it is necessary to build a new link between Crossrail and the Bakerloo line.  

Around 85,000 passengers interchange to and from the Bakerloo line each day and this is set to increase to over 115,000 when Crossrail starts serving Paddington at the end of 2018.

The new link will be completed by the end of 2018 in time for Crossrail opening and the procurement stage has involved close co-operation between the LU and Crossrail teams. 

London’s population is set to grow from 8.4m today to around 10m by 2030 – that’s an extra Tube train full of  people every three days – and it is therefore essential that there is continued investment in increasing services and transport infrastructure to meet this increasing demand.