New rapid exit taxiway, Gatwick airport, UK

NEC has been used to deliver a new rapid exit taxiway (RET) next to the main runway at London Gatwick airport in the UK. Client London Gatwick engaged contractor PJ Hegarty & Sons under a £22.5 million two-stage NEC4 Engineering and Construction Contract (ECC) Option A (priced contract with activity schedule) to build the Echo Romeo RET in August 2022. Following an early contractor involvement (ECI) stage, work started on site in February 2023 and the RET was completed on schedule and budget in February 2024.

London Gatwick is the busiest single-runway airport in the world, the second largest airport in the UK and is the tenth busiest international airport globally. The new RET, which provides another diagonal link between the main runway, northern reserve runway and the terminal, allows more than half of all aircraft arriving from the east to leave runway 26L sooner. This in turn has significantly improved the airport’s overall operational resilience by reducing arrival runway occupancy time. 

The new 17,000 m² taxiway was built using 22,000 t of lean mix concrete for the base layer and 9000 t of surfacing material. The works included new above-ground lighting, pavement drainage and aviation signage. Runway possessions were granted up to five nights a week and all works were delivered without interrupting London Gatwick’s demanding flight schedule. 

London Gatwick was the NEC project manager, and the designer was AtkinsRéalis. The project was shortlisted for the Transport Project of the Year in the 2024 British Construction Industry Awards.

Experienced user

Programme commercial manager Fiona Forbes-Jones (Riley) says London Gatwick has extensive experience of using NEC. ‘We have successfully delivered numerous design and construction frameworks using NEC3 contracts, and we recently retendered these frameworks for the next 4–6 years using NEC4.’

She says in contrast to other forms of contract, the NEC contract suite emphasises collaboration between the client, contractor and subcontractors. ‘It also requires clarity on risk ownership and stimulates good project management, ensuring both parties notify compensation events and determine their impact in a timely manner.’

Forbes-Jones says NEC4 ECC Option A was chosen for the Echo Romeo RET project to ensure cost and programme certainty and efficient management of known risks. ‘During the ECI stage, the contractor worked towards negotiation of the construction stage on a collaborative, open-book basis. It helped transparency of cost and programme by providing subcontract tenders as design progressed. The contractor also priced a detailed risk register, which provided clarity to both parties on exactly who owned which risk.’

She says in line with the NEC requirement on parties to ‘act in a spirit of mutual trust and co-operation’, the client expected all parties to work collaboratively and foster mutual trust across the board. ‘Due to the site being next to a live runway, and with access to carry out the works being a large risk to both the client and the contractor, it was also crucial that we continuously understood the impact of any events on programme and cost as they occurred.’ 

Forbes-Jones says the contract included specific weather events over and above the NEC 1-in-10-year weather events, in which access for night works could be cancelled late in the day.  ‘This low visibility procedure access risk was retained by us, which is why it was so important we understood the impacts of any delays on programme and cost as the project progressed.’

Collaborative approach

Senior project manager Andy Isted says the NEC contract worked well in practice, fostering a collaborative approach across all parties during the works. ‘Weekly progress meetings initially included all commercial matters such as NEC early warnings and compensation events. Later we found it more efficient to have a separate commercial meeting after the progress meeting as this enabled only relevant personnel to be involved.’ 

However, he says the early warnings were discussed in both the progress meetings and commercial meetings. ‘This was to try and keep the early warnings from being a purely commercial discussion. It fostered a culture of all parties coming together to identify issues early and agree on the best routes to resolve them before having commercial discussions on whether the agreed solution was a compensation event or not.’  

Isted says another aspect which fostered collaboration and budget control was that the client and contractor continuously provided transparency on the expected value of compensation events. ‘The client required the project management team to provide rough order of magnitude costs before issuing project manager instructions, which led to quicker agreement of quotations. This ensured both parties were aware of their contractual position throughout the works and made the final account significantly easier to close out.’  

Benefits of using NEC

• NEC flexibility allowed for an ECI stage during which the programme, budget and risk ownership for the fixed-priced construction stage was collaboratively and transparently developed. 
• NEC requirement to act in a ‘spirit of mutual trust and co-operation’ fostered a collaborative approach across all parties during the works.
• NEC early warnings promoted a culture of all parties coming together to identify issues early and agree on the best routes to resolve them.
• NEC enabled continuous transparency on the expected value of compensation events, making the final account significantly easier to close out.