The Australian and New South Wales Governments have announced the WestConnex Stage Two project has entered a new phase with five consortia lodging expressions of interest to deliver Sydney’s M5 East corridor.
These new motorway tunnels from Beverly Hills to St Peters will bring relief to the 100,000 long suffering motorists using the M5 East corridor between Sydney’s south-west and the airport, port and CBD.
Assistant Minister for Infrastructure Jamie Briggs and NSW Minister for Roads Duncan Gay today announced the international companies and consortia bidding to build the WestConnex Stage 2 tunnels are:
- Lend Lease Acciona Joint Venture
- Leighton Dragados Samsung Joint Venture
- Salini Impregilo
- Strabag AG
- TunneLink (consisting of Ferrovial Agroman, Ghella and McConnell Dowell Constructors)
The preferred design and preferred contractor for the Stage 2 tunnel work will be selected by mid-2015, ahead of the exhibition of the environmental impact statement.
The Stage Two tunnel contract is the second multi-billion dollar WestConnex contract to go to market, following the M4 East tunnel contract for Stage 1.
Seven expressions of interest have been received for the construction-only contract to deliver the first part of Stage Two to be built, the M5 – King Georges Road Interchange Upgrade.
The busy Interchange is a critical bottleneck which can trigger congestion throughout the corridor.
The seven contractors and joint ventures to submit expressions of interest are:
- Abergeldie Obayashi Joint Venture
- BMD Constructions
- Civil Mining and Construction and Downer Joint Venture
- Fulton Hogan Construction
- John Holland
- McConnell Dowell Constructors (Aust.)
- Seymour Whyte Constructions
Work is now under way on assessing submissions and a shortlist is expected to be selected at the end of the month.
The construct-only contract involves realignment and extension work at the interchange ahead of the major tunnel work from Beverly Hills to St Peters.
An environmental impact statement (EIS) for the interchange upgrade is being prepared and will go on exhibition before the end of the year.
The NSW Government is providing $1.8 billion worth of funding and the Australian Government $1.5 billion, in addition to a $2 billion concessional loan.
WestConnex is expected to generate up to 10,000 jobs during construction, and deliver more than $20 billion in economic benefits to NSW.
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