The event is the first of several designed to engage with the industry in the run-up to a big industry day scheduled for May next year.
This is when more precise details of contract packages will be set out in a project work pipeline. Before that a £600m enabling works framework is due to go out to tender.
HS2 commercial director Beth West told more than 800 firms attending that an early contractor involvement strategy would be used on the mammoth project.
Main works procurement will be based on NEC3 with an integrated design and contractor team in an incentivised two-stage bid process.
More than half the first phase route will be in cuttings or tunnels, raising the scale of the civil engineering challenge. It will require around 100 bridges and viaducts and four new stations.
The project is programmed to start at the turn of 2016/17 and take around nine and half years to deliver at a total targeted cost of £17.16bn including rolling stock.
Packages
- Tunnels (£2.9bn): 4 main packages of work
- Surface Route (2.7bn): 3 to 6 main packages of work
- Stations (2.6bn): 4 main packages (one main per station). Also option of combining the Birmingham stations and splitting Euston into several packages.
- Enabling Works (£600m): New framework agreement with several ‘Lots’ for different work types and locations
- Railway Systems (1.5bn): 4 to 6 route-wide packages
- Design Services (£350m): Multi-disciplinary packages to progress design to a level appropriate to the contracting strategy and provide on-going Employer’s agent duties as required
- Rolling Stock, Depots and Signalling (2bn+) Single package, with location of depots to be established by HS2 Ltd.
