Four bids have been received in answer to the request for proposals – three are for bored tunnels and the other is for an immersed structure.
Azzopardi said this alternative, submitted by the only Maltese consortium, had not been rejected because IM had been advised that restricting the proposals to bored tunnels might give rise to appeals that would delay the tendering process.
He explained that IM’s conceptual design was for a 14-kilometre horseshoe-shaped tunnel running underground and under the seabed between l-Imbordin, in St Paul’s Bay, and a road near Kenuna Tower, in Nadur.
But this was not the final design or technology – whether bored or immersed. That would only be determined once bidders who satisfied the criteria passed the first phase of the evaluation process and moved to the second phase.