Now, obviously I don’t mind buying the best from abroad. Obviously Bechtel are a highly experienced highly rated organisation with an excellent track record in projects in the UK. They’re also apparently close to Labour and had a big part in the ‘reconstruction’ of Iraq.
So why bury the news that they’ve been appointed Crossrail’s Project Delivery Partner on the day the G20 was in town? Well, for one thing they’re American, which doesn’t sit well with the ‘British Jobs For British Workers’ spiel the Tories have been turning on Labour since the legendarily bad spinning job the latter did on the IEP contract going to the Japanese. However, I suspect the real reason for playing this down a bit is that Bechtel is a key member of Tube Lines, the PPP consortium that hasn’t yet gone bust but is frequently used by Boris to beat the government and justify cutbacks. It doesn’t, therefore, sit well with bunging them £400m, despite them probably being the best people for the job. What will the Standard say?
Hence the only press over this appears to come from outgoing Crossrail top dog Doug Oakervee (where’s your airport plan gone, Doug?*) and rail buff Transport Minister Lord Adonis.
The details from Transport Briefing (who tend to disappear behind paywalls after a few hours):
Crossrail Ltd has awarded its £400m Project Delivery Partner contract to US engineering giant Bechtel.
As Project Delivery Partner, Bechtel will be responsible for overseeing delivery of the core central tunnelled section of the Crossrail route and will also manage the design process. News of the keenly anticipated contract comes after the Transport for London board rubber-stamped the deal this week.
Bechtel is widely known within the UK transport sector. The company, with headquarters in San Francisco, owns one third of Tube Lines, the consortium tasked with upgrading the Jubilee, Northern and Piccadilly Underground lines
..
Bechtel senior vice president Chris Mumm is to spearhead the team named by Crossrail this week as the winner of the £400m Project Delivery Partner contract.
Mumm led the team parachuted in to finish the troubled Jubilee Line Extension project in time for the opening of the Millennium Dome on New Year’s Eve 1999. Despite a backlog of work the project was completed on time, sparing the government considerable embarrassment, and Mumm received an honorary Commander of the British Empire for his contribution.
Working with Bechtel on the Project Delivery Partner contract will be the UK’s Halcrow and France’s Systra, both of which worked alongside Bechtel on the Channel Tunnel Rail Link (High Speed 1) project.
* “This information will be available once Doug Oakervee completes his report; expected around the end of March.” B. Johnson, MQT Feb 2009.
Tags: bechtel · Crossrail · Tube Lines1 Comment
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After the seminar about getting girls into non-traditional trades at last year’s Capital Woman conference a Canadian woman from one of the big civil engineering firms was saying that it’s virtually impossible to find suitably-qualified British staff for their London office which is why they have to recruit from overseas.