Stourton Park and Ride, Leeds

Leeds City Council used NEC3 contracts to deliver the UK's first fully solar-powered park-and-ride facility on time and £1.4 million below the initial target cost, opening in September 2021. The £39 million Stourton Park and Ride, located next to junction 7 of the M621, generates 1.1 MW from solar panels on its car park canopies - more than enough to power the terminus building, lighting, CCTV and 30 electric vehicle charging bays. Delivered with the NEC flexibility to switch mid-contract from Option C to Option A, the scheme won Transport Project of the Year at the 2022 British Construction Industry Awards and the Major Project Award at the 2022 Highways UK Excellence Awards.

The UK's first fully solar-powered park-and-ride 

Stourton Park and Ride provides 1,200 spaces on a 1.5 ha site near the M621, serving commuters from the south and southwest of Leeds with buses to the city centre. Solar panels across the car park canopies generate 1.1 MW - sufficient to power the green-roofed terminus building, all external lighting, CCTV systems and 30 electric vehicle charging bays, with enabling ducts already installed for a further 84 future charging bays. Over 12,000 trees and shrubs were planted across the site and a sustainable drainage system with permeable paving and integrated attenuation was installed throughout. 

The scheme also included substantial off-site highways works: over 14,100 m2 of new carriageway, new bus lanes, capacity and safety improvements to the existing M621 junction 7 slip roads, and smart traffic signal technology at junctions and bus gateways. Construction was let to Bam Nuttall, with designer Mott MacDonald engaged under an NEC3 PSC. Leeds City Council is an experienced NEC user, having also delivered the £50 million Leeds Flood Alleviation Scheme, the £31 million Regent Street flyover and the £8 million Newmarket House waste depot under NEC contracts. 

Switching from Option C to Option A mid-construction 

John White, Leeds City Council civil engineering manager, says the construction works were initially let under ECC Option C with a 50% pain/gain share capped at 5% of target cost - felt necessary given the tight funding window and the level of scheme development at tender stage. As works progressed, however, the council took the deliberate decision to convert the contract to ECC Option A. White sets out the reasoning candidly: the conversion immediately reduced programming overhead, cut the council's risk profile by transferring risks that the delivery partner was better placed to manage, improved cost certainty by capping the potential erosion of gain share or escalation of pain share, and significantly reduced the scope of contract administration for all parties. 

White says all NEC contracts worked well throughout. The NEC requirement to act in a spirit of mutual trust and co-operation underpinned the collaborative delivery model across both design and construction partners, with CEMAR contract management software and a common data environment ensuring consistency of information across two separate contracts. He says the conversion from Option C to Option A had a particularly significant positive impact on commercial and contract administration: the simplified payment and compensation event processes reduced a resourcing constraint that had affected all parties on multiple concurrent activities. 

The NEC requirement to act in a spirit of mutual trust and co-operation was key to the collaborative delivery model we developed. Working with two different delivery partners meant consistency in information and contract management was vital. Use of CEMAR contract management software and a common data environment aided this significantly. 
- John White, Civil Engineering Manager, Highways and Transportation, Leeds City Council

Benefits of using NEC 

• NEC's flexibility allowed a mid-contract conversion from ECC Option C to Option A when conditions changed, improving cost certainty, reducing risk exposure and simplifying contract administration across a multi-activity programme with two delivery partners. 
• NEC3's consistent contract terms across both the construction ECC and the designer's PSC ensured information management and contractual processes were aligned throughout, essential when coordinating design and construction partners on a tight programme. 
• The NEC spirit of mutual trust and co-operation, supported by CEMAR administration and a shared CDE, delivered the consistent collaborative model Leeds City Council needed to meet a challenging funding window with quality-weighted procurement. 
• Leeds City Council's established NEC experience across multiple major projects provided the commercial confidence to use NEC's in-built flexibility actively - including the mid-contract option conversion - rather than treating the contract as a fixed framework.