Royal Assent for High Speed 2 may be more than two years away but contractors and suppliers are urged to identify opportunities and form partnerships now if they are keen to secure work on the project.

“Now is the time to begin working with each other, build relationships, form teams and work in a collaborative manner,” HS2’s chief executive Simon Kirby told an audience of 700 industry representatives at a London conference last Friday. “We expect 60% of supply chain opportunities to go to small and medium sized enterprises and there is a 10 year pipeline of work just for phase one.”

He added that recent months have seen a change in the programme’s approach to design, following a review of other major railway builds across the world. “We are now going to spend longer in design and are going to get our planning right through early contractor involvement.”

Procurement for design as well as enabling and advanced works begins early next year and invitations to tender for work packages begins in 2016 ahead of the first spade in the ground in 2018.

“High Speed 2 is not going to be business as usual; it has to go better, faster and cheaper than any other high speed railway,” he added. “So we are going to have to innovate, push ourselves and organisations to new heights and design every part of the railway to meet high expectations. HS2 is now in transition from a planning team to a delivery organisation.”

♦ Improving rail links between Manchester and Leeds is the critical first step to turning Chancellor George Osborne’s ‘Northern Powerhouse’ rhetoric into reality. So says a new report by independent research organisation Centre for Cities.

‘Fast Track to Growth – Transport Priorities for Stronger Cities’, argues quicker and more frequent connections between the two cities would enable business collaboration and a wider pool of accessible job opportunities, creating better capacity to drive growth.

The report is backed by the Department for Transport.

(Image: HS2)

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