J. Murphy & Sons · Highways · Joint venture tender · Murphy share £337m
Lower Thames Crossing
Helping win the contract for the UK’s longest road tunnels
The project
The Lower Thames Crossing is National Highways’ new 14.5-mile road linking Kent and Essex, almost doubling road capacity across the Thames east of London. At its heart are twin 2.6-mile bored tunnels beneath the river, wide enough for three lanes of traffic in each direction.
The challenge
The tunnels and approaches contract was one of the most closely contested infrastructure tenders in the UK. Bidders had to show they could deliver tunnels of a scale never built in this country, within a joint venture, and beat a hard limit on construction carbon set by National Highways as part of its Pathfinder for carbon-neutral construction.
What we did
Working inside the Bouygues-Murphy bid team, we produced technical content across the tender (tunnels and shafts): storyboarding answers, developing win themes and writing to the ITT scoring criteria. We drew on previous submissions, methodology libraries and interviews with subject matter experts, and refined answers through review feedback to keep the joint venture’s voice consistent across the submission.
The outcome
In December 2023, National Highways awarded the tunnelling contract to the Bouygues Travaux Publics–Murphy joint venture (BMJV), completing the project’s delivery team. Murphy’s share of the contract is worth £337m. The winning bid reduced embodied carbon below National Highways’ limit. The scheme received development consent in March 2025, and the joint venture is now delivering the project.
Services we provided
Technical writing · Win themes · Joint venture tender support
Let’s talk
Tell us what you’re bidding for and we’ll get back to you. One point of contact who leads your bid, backed by a team producing the content.