Key steps were achieved last month in the future leadership and support for the Crossrail tunnelling project in London as well as its funding and procurement.

The project is to be headed by Tube Lines’ chief executive Terry Morgan as non-executive chair from November 2009. Tube Lines has a public-private partnership (PPP) contract with Transport for London (TfL) to upgrade the following deep metro lines in the capital – Jubilee, Northern and Piccadilly. He was previously group managing director for operations with BAE Systems.

The responsibilities of the executive chairman role, held by Douglas Oakervee, are being split between the new non-executive chairman post and also the chief executive position, for which recruitment is also underway. He will keep the responsibilities that will be assigned to the non-exec chair role until Morgan joins next year.

Crossrail also proved to be a jewel in the crown in the truncated transport infrastructure plan for the next decade that was announced last month by TfL and the Mayor of London. While some other projects were deferred, the strategic importance of Crossrail to the capital’s future economic growth kept support for the scheme.

Crossrail is being built by Cross London Rail Links (CLRL), and will involve excavation of 41.5km of 6m i.d. twin tube tunnel using seven TBMs, starting in 2011. Enabling works start next year.

CLRL has also announced the shortlist of three parties for the Programme Partner contract, dropping Mouchel and keeping Bechtel and two JVs: Legacy 3 (Parsons Brinckerhoff, Balfour Beatty Management and Davis Langdon); and, Transcend (AECOM, CH2M Hill United Kingdom Unlimited and Nichols Group).

Funding for Crossrail also took a further positive step forward last month with the agreement of airport operator BAA to contribute US$344M in outturn prices toward the cost of constructing the scheme, which will run through the heart of the capital and link with Heathrow airport. Adjusted for inflation to early 2007 levels, the contribution – which is subject to regulatory approval – is £180M.

BAA owns and runs the airport, and CLRL has guaranteed that, in return for the funding, the company will receive a fast train service to run four times per hour for much of the day. The airport operator already runs an express link from Paddington station, which Crossrail will also pass through, and said the services would be complementary. BAA will give the funds in two tranches via its subsidiary Heathrow Airport Ltd.

The US$23.8bn scheme has Government fundings and contributions from businesses set to benefit from the transport scheme due to start operations in 2017. Approval of the project was given in July (T&TI, September, p7).

Five parties have been shortlisted to bid for the project delivery partner contract: Bechtel; Laing O’Rourke Holdings; Legacy 3; Capita Symonds with NNN; and, Fluor, Ove Arup and EC Harris (called Flare).

There were 15 parties invited to tender for the design framework contracts.

For the construction phase of the tunnelling scheme, CLRL plans to use Optimised Contractor Involvement (OCI) to take forward the procurement process.