Barking Riverside Station, London, UK

NEC contracts have been used to procure a new overground station in east London. Transport for London (TfL) let the Barking Riverside Station under two separate NEC3 Engineering and Construction Contracts (ECC) Option A (priced contract with activity schedule), one for design and one for construction. 

Following completion of the design by Arcadis, a joint venture of Morgan Sindall Infrastructure and VolkerFitzpatrick started on site in December 2018. Despite the challenges of working through the Covid-19 pandemic, the station was completed ahead of the revised programme and budget in July 2022.

The new station and associated 1.5 km of new elevated track have extended London Overground’s Suffragette line 4.5 km beyond Barking to the north bank of the Thames. After departing from Barking, trains now run on 3 km of the existing Tilbury line before crossing over rail tracks and roads to reach the river.

The new step-free rail terminus is supporting the development of 20,000 homes, schools, commercial, leisure and health facilities on the brownfield site of the former Barking power station. It forms part of a transport interchange with buses, cycle routes and the NEC-procured Barking Riverside pier, which opened in April 2023. 

With architectural design by WW+P, the reinforced concrete station building features ticket barriers, offices and shops on the ground floor with twin covered platforms above. The building is clad in aluminium columns, perforated weathering steel screens and 6.6 m high glass panels at platform level. The curving viaduct consists of 56 steel and concrete spans up to 42 m long supported on reinforced concrete piers. The contract included demolition, reconfiguration of a rail goods yard, tracklaying, overhead line electrification and signalling.

The project was shortlisted for the Transport of Project of the Year in the 2024 British Construction Industry Awards and was commended in the 2023 Building Beauty Awards.

Standard contract

TfL head of programme James Barrows says NEC is now the standard suite of contracts for TfL infrastructure projects. ‘In this case ECC Option A was chosen as it provided better cost certainty and reduced client risk exposure. Using separate contracts for design and construction also meant the design was completed to a sufficient level of maturity to allow the construction contractor to provide a more accurate price.’ 

He says NEC worked well during both design and construction due to the scale of the project, the large number of stakeholders involved and the delivery issues encountered. ‘In addition to the challenges of working through the Covid-19 pandemic, we also found unexpected buried services. Both of these impacted works progress and required extensive mitigation.’

Barrows says the NEC requirement to act in a ‘spirit of mutual trust and co-operation’ meant collaboration was good throughout. ‘The construction contractor and client were collocated and worked as one team to resolve problems and issues encountered. Many NEC early warnings were notified and joint risk reduction meetings were undertaken to work out the best way forward. Compensation events were notified in line with the contract and entitlements were discussed at joint meetings before reaching settlement in a fair and open way.’ 

He says the client and construction contractor attended weekly visualisation sessions where progress, concerns and commercial activities were discussed as a team. ‘Joint progress meetings were held where all aspects of delivery were discussed, including costs and schedule. A periodic project leadership review was also undertaken where progress with compensation events, schedule and budget were discussed.’

At the official opening in July 2022, London mayor Sadiq Khan said, ‘I'm delighted that the new Barking Riverside London Overground station recently opened to customers, ahead of schedule. Residents will now benefit from a modern, spacious new station and greatly reduced journey times, with Barking just seven minutes away.’

Benefits of using NEC

• ECC Option A provided client with better cost certainty and reduced client risk exposure and, by using separate ECC Option A for detailed design, ensured a more accurate construction price.
• NEC requirement to act in a ‘spirit of mutual trust and co-operation’ meant collaboration was good throughout.
• NEC-inspired collaboration meant contractor and client teams worked as one team to resolve problems and issues encountered.
• NEC early warnings were notified, including for Covid-19 and unexpected buried services, and joint risk reduction meetings were undertaken to work out the best way forward.