Bam Nuttall has landed a €56.85M contract to build a 7.5ha concrete deck at London City Airport, New Civil Engineer can reveal.
New Civil Engineer understands that Bam Nuttall has beaten Vinci and a joint venture between Graham and Lagan Construction Group to design and build a new concrete deck for the airport, extending it out over the King George V dock.
The deck will consist of precast reinforced concrete planks with an in situ topping spanning onto precast concrete beams supported on more than 1,000 large diameter bored concrete piles with steel casings (typically spaced at 10m centres) founded beneath the dock bed. Average water depth is approximately 10m with the piles potentially extending a further 10m below the dock bed, averaging about 20m length per pile. The current estimated pile quantity is a total of 1,029, being, by diameter size, 13 at 1.5m diameter, 999 at 1.2m and 17 at 1m diameter.
The work is the first stage of the M City Airport Development Programme (CADP), which will entail seven new aircraft stands, a parallel taxiway and passenger terminal extension. It’s hoped the changes will enable passenger numbers to grow from 4.3M last year to 6.5M. London City Airport will also fund transport links around the airport, including M for additional Docklands Light Railway rolling stock, investing in a bus and taxi access scheme and improving walking and cycle routes to the airport.
The deck will be the first significant piece of construction work as part of the expansion programme.
Bidding was launched last October following transport secretary Chris Grayling’s decision to give the green light for the expansion in July 2016 - overturning a previous decision by then London mayor Boris Johnson to block the project.
Johnson had refused to grant the project a compulsory purchase order saying the development of the airport would “blight the lives of thousands of people”. But within a week of being elected London mayor in May 2016, Sadiq Khan dropped the Greater London Authority’s objection to the CPO, paving the way for the government to give the expansion the go-ahead.