Awards

Business in the Community 2004
5 Health and Safety Awards 2005
Project of the Year 2006

Creating Terminal 5 at London Heathrow Airport

After the longest planning enquiry in British history, construction of Heathrow Airport Terminal 5 was approved by the Secretary of State in 2001 and work began in 2002. This is one of Europe’s largest construction projects and at its heart is the new terminal building complex, futuristic in design and large enough to house 50 football pitches. Due to the project’s scale BAA engaged WMS to lead and co-ordinate various teams to deliver quality design solutions for the Heathrow Terminal 5 Buildings on time, and to budget. The total Buildings cost was over £1.6bn with Services worth £380m.  Concourses A and B were completed on schedule in March 2008.

WMS spearheaded completion of Buildings design and supplemented the project teams with specialist project management resource in the following key areas:

  • System co-ordination/integration
  • Cost and commercial management
  • Lead compilation and asset management
  • Scheduling and Planning
  • IT solutions
  • Development and production of KPI reporting tools
  • Lead Concourse B building services through to completion of shell and core modules
  • Guided and supplemented the management of the design and fit-out packages
Key data
Client BAA Plc
Area 360,000m2 - Terminal Buildings A & B
Covering roughly one quarter of the total footprint of Heathrow Airport, the new terminal complex will ultimately encompass a site approximately the size of Hyde Park in London and cost £4.3bn, funded by BAA. This milestone project involves over 60 contractors, 16 major projects and 147 sub-projects on a 260ha site. On completion Terminal 5 will have capacity for a further 35 million customers per year taking total passenger numbers to around 90 million, making Heathrow the world’s busiest airport. The project will add 20,066m2 of retail space, increasing the size of Heathrow’s retail portfolio by 50%.