After securing a place on the Combined Authority’s Professional Services Framework last year, our northern-based transport teams have recently secured six competitive wins to deliver priority schemes.
Background
As part of the City Deal between West Yorkshire, York, and central government, a new £1 billion transport fund was established in 2014 to increase employment and economic growth across the region over a ten-year period.
In June 2016, we appointed Tracey Brewer as Associate Director in our Leeds office. Tracey had been pivotal in the delivery of the Combined Authority’s first major project, the Wakefield Eastern Relief Road (which recently won the CIHT Yorkshire & Humber Large Scheme Award) and the Pontefract Northern Relief Road.
Keen to deliver the hat-trick, Tracey has now been seconded through the Combined Authority’s framework to work as Wakefield Council’s Project Manager to deliver the £7.5m Glasshoughton Southern Link Road, which aims to open 136 hectares of land for residential development and relieve congestion on the local highway network.
The proposals for the road were first mooted back in 2015, and it was suggested that it could catalyse 1,300 new homes, creating more than 3,200 jobs and injecting £29 million into the local economy by 2026.
Tetra Tech was also appointed by Wakefield Council to provide consultancy services to deliver this scheme, which includes transport planning, highway design, town planning, environmental, archaeology, geospatial, geo-environmental, and noise, air, light and odour (NALO).
Within a tight programme driven by Tracey on behalf of Wakefield Council, we have secured planning approval to deliver the scheme, and recent approval from the Combined Authority to go out to tender. Tender documents were released on 28th September and construction work is anticipated to start on site early in the New Year, to be finished by 2020.
Following our successful delivery on this project, Kirklees Council has also appointed us as Project Manager to secure Outline Business Cases for their Combined Authority schemes, including a package of Corridor Improvement Programmes.
Other wins include our appointment to undertake modelling work on the A62 Leeds Road Corridor scheme (valued at £7.9 million), which recently received Outline Business Case Approval. Tracey is now working on the Full Business Case and tender brief will be issued soon for the detailed design and associated studies, which we hope Tetra Tech continues to be involved with. Other upcoming projects for Kirklees include the Huddersfield Southern Gateway (£8.2m), Holmfirth Town Centre Access Plan (£8.5m), and the recently included Waterloo junction (£7m).
We have also worked with Calderdale Council on a study to identify pedestrian, cycle, and bus access routes, including the potential for new bridges over the River Calder and the Calder & Hebble canal to serve a new railway station at Elland. The scope of this project has expanded to include improvements to the town centre.
Bradford Council has also appointed Tetra Tech to deliver the Outline Business Case for the £70m Bradford to Shipley Corridor scheme. Additional multi-disciplinary work includes transport modelling, Noise & Air Quality monitoring (including base line modelling for a Clean Air Zone), Archaeology, Geo-Environment and Ecology, as well as a screening request for Planning.
Our latest commission is with the Combined Authority and Leeds City Council for their Transport Hub and Connecting Community project – a £12m series of schemes to increase bus patronage by improving facilities and linkages to communities. In addition to project managing these, we are also writing the Outline Business Case.
West Yorkshire Combined Authority Framework Director, Nick Bunn said:
“The Combined Authority framework is bringing huge benefits to the Leeds City Region and across the Northern Powerhouse. It is opening up development sites and maximising the increase in employment, productivity and growth across West Yorkshire through the delivery of transport schemes. We are very pleased to help to delivery these critical projects and looking forward to increasing our work for Combined Authority.”