Bond Street Station Upgrade Project, London, UK

London’s Bond Street Tube Station provides access to one of the United Kingdom’s busiest shopping districts - serving tourists, residents and businesses in the area. The Station suffers from congestion caused by heavy passenger traffic from both entry/exit flows and those interchanging between services on the Jubilee and Central lines.

Currently the station provides insufficient access for mobility impaired passengers. The congestion problems are anticipated to get worse as general demand increases and as Crossrail services are introduced in 2018.

Main tunnelling works are due to start on site in 2013 and are scheduled to be completed during 2015. The construction cost of redeveloping Bond Street Tube station is in the region of £150m. The overall cost of the London Underground project is in the region of £300m.

Dr. Sauer & Partners was initially employed as the specialist sub-consultant to Atkins for producing the sprayed concrete lining (SCL) design for the primary and secondary linings of the Northern Tunnel structures. Design drawings were produced up to Stage D+ of the RIBA Plan of Work. 

Transport for London awarded the design-build contract for the detailed design and construction of the upgrade to a joint venture (JV) of Costain and Laing O'Rourke (CoLOR). The scheme includes additional escalators, step-free access interchanges and a connection to the future Crossrail station. CoLOR appointed a JV of Halcrow and Atkins (HAT) to undertake the design. Dr. Sauer & Partners is the specialist sub-consultant to HAT responsible for all sprayed concrete lining (SCL) tunnelling works.

The principal design challenges are the close proximity of the proposed tunnels to existing operational tunnels, complex tunnel geometry and alignments, limited clearance to existing buildings pad foundations, restricted work site and strict settlement criteria.The majority of tunnelling works are located in the London Clay, although works at Jubilee line level are expected to be in the Lambeth Group strata which can contain sand channels. 

The primary and final sprayed concrete linings will be constructed using steel fibre reinforced concrete in combination with a sprayed waterproofing membrane. 

The use of compensation grouting is a key to mitigate settlement caused by tunnelling works. In total, approximately 370m of SCL tunnels and shafts will be built with excavation cross-sections varying from 15m2 to 90m2. 

Dr. Sauer & Partners will also provide site support services during the construction phase.