Tough contest

Cross London Rail Links (CLRL) has shortlisted four organisations to compete for Stage 2 of the Crossrail Project Delivery Partner tendering process.

Cross London Rail Links (

CLRL

) has shortlisted four organisations to compete for Stage 2 of the Crossrail Project Delivery Partner tendering process.

With preparatory work scheduled to start in 2009, London’s Crossrail rail link will run 118km from Maidenhead and Heathrow in the west through twin-bore 21km tunnels under central London to Shenfield and Abbey Wood in the east.

The entire network is expected to be operational by 2017.

The shortlisted tenderers for Stage 2 are Bechtel, Legacy 3 (a joint venture between Parsons Brinckerhoff, Balfour Beatty Management and Davis Langdon Programme Management), Laing O'Rourke and a joint venture between Capita Symonds and Northcroft.

The project delivery partner will help Crossrail fulfil its obligations to deliver the overall project on time and within budget.

Stage 2 tenders will be returned on 30 January 2009, and an announcement about the appointment is expected in spring 2009.

Today’s announcement is another important step in the delivery of Crossrail, following parliamentary approval for this £15.9bn rail route in July, the signing in December of a series of core funding and governance agreements that will underpin the project and the recent announcements of funding contributions from BAA , the City Corporation and the Canary Wharf Group.