Sisk wins €600m rail tunnel deal

IRISH CONSTRUCTION group Sisk and a Spanish partner, Dragados, have won a €600 million deal to build part of a new rail tunnel under central London.

Sisk said yesterday that the London Transport-owned Crossrail had announced that it intended awarding a tunnelling contract to Sisk Dragados JV, a joint venture between the Irish company and Dragados.

Crossrail is awarding the Irish-Spanish joint venture a contract to build twin tunnels from Limmo Peninsula in east London to Farringdon and Victoria Dock, and Stepney Green and Pudding Mill Lane.

Sisk yesterday estimated the total value of the contract at €600 million.

The scheme is part of London’s Crossrail project, which will link Heathrow and Maidenhead and the west of the city through its centre to Shenfield and Abbey Wood in the east, a total of 118km (73 miles).

Crossrail is the biggest construction project currently under way anywhere in Europe and is designed to boost the British capital’s rail transport capacity by 10 per cent, bringing a larger group of people within commuting distance of the city’s centre.

The Limmo/Farringdon route, known as C305, was one of a number of contracts awarded yesterday. The overall project will involve 30 such deals, which will be awarded over the next 18 months.

Dragados Sisk was recently named as one of three preferred bidders for the contract. Its competitors were British giant Carillion and Sindall.

Sisk and Dragados intend to begin tunnelling late next year and will begin work with specialist boring machines the following spring.

The work will involve creating 21km (14 miles) of tunnels.

The Irish company and Dragados have collaborated on civil engineering projects before.

Owen Sisk, director of the civil engineering division of the group’s British subsidiary, said yesterday that their combined technical and management expertise would ensure the project’s delivery.