Heysham will be included in a £750m construction plan to improve ports across the UK and Ireland.
Peel Ports Group, the UK’s second-largest port operator which runs Heysham Port, is inviting contractors to submit bids for a major long-term programme of construction works across its sites.
The port operator wants to appoint contractors to two frameworks for a period of up to eight years, with one framework covering general construction and the other covering marine construction.
The work will include drainage; the construction and maintenance of new and existing roads and car parks; earthworks and ground remediation; foundations and piling; the construction, maintenance and refurbishment of new and existing warehouses; paving, surfacing and concrete works; rail construction; bridge construction and refurbishment; and demolition.
The specialist marine construction works will include piling; asset renewal and refurbishment; berthing furniture and bollards; quay walls; Lock and Sluice gate maintenance and replacement; and RoRo ('Roll-on, Roll-off', which describes how products are loaded and discharged from a vessel.)
The projects will be carried out across all of Peel Ports' sites also including the Port of Liverpool, Manchester Ship Canal, London Medway, its Clydeport sites, Great Yarmouth, and Dublin Port.
“Our ports form a network of busy logistics hubs servicing local, national and global supply chains, and this move represents a huge step in our efforts to futureproof that network, so we can keep responding and adapting to our port users’ needs in an agile way," said Lewis McIntyre, Managing Director of Port Services at Peel Ports Group.
“The long-term nature of these framework agreements allows us to build meaningful, commercially sustainable partnerships with our construction contractors. It further allows us to appoint a collection of regional suppliers to give us breadth and depth of scope, skill, and responsiveness; the way the frameworks are structured provides invaluable opportunities for the successful partners to design and build sustainable solutions for our various projects, in what will be a truly collaborative approach as we aim for net zero by 2040.”
The procurement process is expected to take place throughout 2024, with contracts expected to be awarded towards the end of the year.