IN Brief:
- Kier Transportation is procuring a £250,000–£500,000 sprayed-concrete package for Manchester Airport station.
- The works cover reinforcement and shotcrete installation to exposed contiguous piled retaining walls within a live rail and airport environment.
- Platform changes are intended to provide capacity for two 144-metre trains to use two of the station’s four platforms.
Kier Transportation is seeking a specialist contractor to deliver sprayed-concrete reinforcement works at Manchester Airport station as railway infrastructure is prepared for longer train formations.
The open procurement is valued between £250,000 and £500,000 and forms part of Tranche 1 of the Manchester and North West Transformation Programme. Bids are due on 16 October, with the specialist works currently scheduled to run from February to July 2027.
The package centres on exposed contiguous piled retaining walls around the platform works. Its scope includes preparing and cleaning wall faces, installing mesh reinforcement and anchor bars, applying injection mortar and placing sprayed concrete before curing and finishing the new surface.
Expansion and construction joints must also be formed and sealed, while the contractor will be responsible for protecting adjacent railway assets from rebound, overspray and other damage during application. Testing, inspection, quality assurance, handover documentation and removal of rebound and washout waste are included within the tender.
Shotcrete allows concrete to be pneumatically projected onto an existing surface rather than poured between conventional shutters. Reinforcement can be fixed against the prepared substrate before concrete is sprayed over it, allowing vertical or irregular surfaces to be strengthened without constructing full-height formwork around the new layer.
The process still depends on close control of material placement. Sprayed concrete has to build the specified thickness around the reinforcement without voids, while rebound — material that fails to adhere on impact — has to be removed rather than incorporated back into the work. Curing and testing follow placement to establish whether the finished layer meets the required strength and quality.
Overspray presents a separate risk on a constrained railway site because concrete can contaminate track, signalling, electrical or drainage assets if neighbouring areas are not protected. The procurement therefore combines the structural work with requirements covering containment, housekeeping, inspection and protection of adjacent infrastructure.
Those controls have to operate within a live rail and airport environment. Access, material delivery, plant positioning and waste removal must be coordinated around operational railway infrastructure and the wider airport interchange rather than managed on an isolated civils site.
The retaining-wall works support plans to increase usable platform capacity at Manchester Airport station. Industry analysis by Northern and TransPennine Express identified additional capacity as necessary if longer rolling stock is introduced while existing services continue to originate and terminate at the airport.
Current arrangements include permissive working that allows more than one train to occupy a platform under controlled conditions. The planned changes are intended to allow two six-car formations, each comprising six 24-metre vehicles and measuring 144 metres, to use two of the station’s four platforms.
Changing platform capacity affects more than the passenger-facing edge. Retaining structures, track geometry, signalling interfaces, overhead-line equipment, drainage and access routes can all be influenced by modifications to the length or layout of a platform. The programme is consequently being divided into specialist packages that can be coordinated around the same station-remodelling sequence.
A separate overhead-line package for Manchester Airport was put to market at the end of September. That procurement covered OLE modifications associated with the same programme, demonstrating how civil and electrical workstreams have to align where platform geometry changes beneath electrified railway infrastructure.
The airport project forms part of the wider Manchester and North West Transformation Programme, which is developing interventions intended to improve capacity and reliability across the congested regional rail network. The station works derive from the Cross Manchester Capacity and Reliability Improvement Study and sit alongside other measures rather than operating as a standalone airport development.
Manchester Airport station also presents unusual logistical constraints because railway operations sit directly alongside a major aviation hub. Possession planning and worksite access have to account for train movements and passenger circulation while contractors manage ordinary construction risks around concrete placement, lifting, temporary works and materials handling.
The shotcrete package is comparatively small beside the overall rail programme, but the retaining structures form part of the geometry required to support altered platforms. Delays or quality failures in one specialist package can therefore affect follow-on track, platform or systems work even where the individual contract value is modest.
Kier’s tender gives suppliers until 16 October to submit bids, with the contract expected to begin on 10 February 2027 and finish on 27 July. The successful contractor will enter a project where sprayed-concrete quality, containment and railway access have to be controlled together as Manchester Airport station moves towards accommodation of longer trains.
