Sisk wins €600m London tunnel contract as part of joint venture

A €600m contract for tunnelling works on London’s Crossrail project has been awarded to a joint venture between John Sisk & Son and Spanish construction firm Dragados.

Crossrail will be Europe’s largest infrastructure project and will boost London’s rail capacity by 10%, running a total of 118km from Maidenhead and Heathrow in the west, through London to Shenfield and Abbey Wood in the east.

Known as “C305”, the contract announced today is to build the Eastern Running Tunnels from Limmo Peninsula to Farringdon; Limmo Peninsula to Victoria Dock and Stepney Green to Pudding Mill Lane. The project will comprise a total of approximately 11.9km of twin bore tunnels.

“We are delighted to be working with our joint venture partner Dragados on what will be Europe’s largest infrastructure project,” said company spokesman Owen Sisk.

“We believe our combined technical and management expertise will successfully deliver this very important addition to Britain’s transport infrastructure.”

The contracts are the first of nearly that will be awarded over the next 18 months by Crossrail. A further series of tunnelling contracts will be awarded in 2011.

Tunnelling work will commence in late 2011 with boring machines starting work in spring 2012 beginning the 21km of tunnels required for the whole scheme.

The contract announcement is subject to a minimum 10-day stand-still period before the award of contracts can be confirmed, in line with European procurement requirements.