Stonehenge tunnel negotiations begin next month

In a bid to maintain business as usual, Highways England has confirmed the three teams shortlisted to build the £1.7bn Stonehenge tunnel scheme and begins six months of competitive dialogue with them next month.The shortlisted bidders will be asked to submit their final bids in October, with the winner announced sometime in 2021.Whether construction will actually start in 2021, as had been the aspiration, is increasingly uncertain, given the deteriorating economic situation.The three groups invited to bid are:BMJV, comprising Bouygues Travaux Publics and J Murphy & Sons;HDJV, consisting of Hochtief Infrastructure GmbH and Dragados;MORE JV, comprising FCC Construcción (42.5%), Salini Impregilo (42.5%) and BeMo Tunnelling UK (15%).The main construction contract for the A303 Amesbury to Berwick Down scheme includes eight miles of new dual carriageway and a tunnel at least two miles long underneath the Stonehenge World Heritage Site in Wiltshire.The main works contract also includes a new bypass to the north of the village of Winterbourne Stoke and the construction of new junctions with the A345 and A360 either side of Stonehenge.The value of the main construction contract has been estimated at £1.25bn out of an overall capital cost of £1.7bnFollowing the six-month development consent order examination last year, the Planning Inspectorate has now sent its report and recommendation to the secretary of state for transport and a decision is expected in due course.Salini Impregilo said that bidding for the contract as part of the MORE JV represented its return to the UK after more than 10 years away, confirming its “commercial strategy to focus on countries with low risk profiles”, it said. Salini Impregilo previously built the oncology centre at the Churchill Hospital in Oxford and the Butetown-Cardiff Link.However, as previously reported, the political risk associated with this project was high even before Covid-19 began to hit the economy.