Contractors announced for £2bn Wales and Western region rail programme

Several key suppliers have been announced for a £2bn scheme on the Wales and Western Region rail network, which will take place over the next eight years. 

Network Rail has announced its trusted suppliers on the project will include AmcoGiffen, Octavius, BAM Nuttall, Morgan Sindall Infrastructure, and Taylor Woodrow.

The contracts play a key part in a new way of collaborative working between the Wales and Western region and trusted suppliers over a longer term to deliver faster and more efficient projects, achieving greater value for money for the public purse.

The contracts cover essential renewals to buildings and structures such as bridges, tunnels, culverts and drainage, as well as supplying and maintaining electrification and plant.

It follows industry, government and supplier feedback on best practice and covers electrification and plant, stations, buildings, and civils renewals projects from 2024 to 2029 (Control Period 7), with options to extend to a maximum total of eight years.

Stuart Calvert, capital delivery director for Network Rail’s Wales and Western region, said: “We have made real progress in transforming the delivery of our investment projects, reducing the time and cost of our work, as we saw with completion of the Dartmoor Line to Okehampton.

“We’re taking this same approach to our renewals, and it’s very important that we select excellent suppliers and work collaboratively to get the same sort of benefits which will ultimately support better service for our passengers and freight customers. I’m very excited with these new contracts and look forward to developing the portfolio of works with them.”

The electrification and plant portfolio covers major overhead line interventions to new points heaters, and all the plant at the Severn Tunnel pumping station. The stations’ work streams include new stations at North Filton and Henbury in Bristol, Wellington and Cullompton in Devon and Charfield in South Gloucestershire.

Network Rail is, by packaging the work into one portfolio, expecting time and cost efficiencies through the best use of resources, consistency, continual improvement, as well as better coordinated access to the railway and a focus on innovative solutions.

This new approach will enable Wales and Western and their suppliers to work much more collaboratively across a longer term pipeline of work, enabling suppliers to better manage their own resources and supply chain, and help them deliver the right project solutions working closely with Network Rail.

Wales and Western’s commitment to working with suppliers to find new ways of working is in line with the principles of the SPEED approach to project delivery, focusing on the right solutions at the right cost, delivering faster and more efficiently, and providing value for money for taxpayers. 

The longer term collaboration and commercial focus will encourage this more effective contracting and help improve how Network Rail designs, plans and develops projects to deliver better outcomes for passengers, freight and funders.These contracts form part of Wales and Western’s overall programme to develop long-term supply relationships, like the one already in place with South Rail System Alliance (Colas and AECOM), with similar contracts for signalling later this year.