Five project management lessons from Silvertown Tunnel

Transport for London’s (TfL’s) Silvertown Tunnel, which opened in April 2025 to ease congestion around the Blackwall Tunnel, created one of London’s most complex infrastructure projects. We spoke to the team responsible for the spring 2026 issue of Project.

Here are five key takeaways from that conversation:

1. Establish the terms early for long-term success

The Silvertown Tunnel project is a 25-year public-private partnership for TfL. Even before they put the project out to tender, its team had to understand the future operation of the asset at the deepest level in order to set out the ultimate goals for the partner who’d be running it for the next 25 years.

It was down to Ana Mendez Civieta, Operations Manager for the winning consortium, Riverlinx, to ensure the future running of the tunnel remained front-of-mind throughout the design and construction process.

“The people who are designing and building the tunnel have their own challenges, and it's not in their DNA to think about how you’re going to use the tunnel,” she says. “You need a contract that allows you to be flexible but keeps a clear goal in mind. While we all had our own individual objectives, that common goal was clear all the way through.”

2. Relationships are more powerful than formal silos

On a vast project like Silvertown, disparate teams need to be able to communicate their perspective, pressures and technical challenges to each other. Yet the connections crucial for binding people together can easily get lost in formal roles and responsibilities. For that reason, the desks for the various project leads were positioned just yards apart.

“It was as if we were one team the whole time,” says Larry Mackey, Silvertown Tunnel’s Quality Director. “The engagement and collaboration were ongoing right until the day the project opened. We were able to be really open and honest with each other. Because of that foundation, we could say what issues we were facing, and people would ask how they could help.”

3. New projects can mean changing your fundamentals

The TfL team had no handbook for running a 25-year partnership. It required the project team to change their operating model. For example, they couldn’t simply hand the tunnel’s instant response plan over to Riverlinx and be done with it. TfL had 92 critical systems that needed to be updated in order to integrate seamlessly, says Nick Boot-Handford, Senior Programme Manager at TfL.

“That holistic picture involved people, processes and systems, and came as a bit of a surprise,” he says. The solution? Shifting from a traditional waterfall method to agile sprints.

“Our people are used to being in complete control of our operations, and we now had to relinquish a lot of that,” he adds. “We had to react quickly and bring people on that journey.”

4. You can’t shy away from stakeholders

The Silvertown Tunnel was in development for more than a decade. In that time, it was subject to intense public scrutiny, review and challenge. This was welcomed by the team.

“We knew stakeholder engagement would be critical to success,” says Boot-Handford, who went on to describe a tapestry of workshops, site visits and regular face-to-face meetings with locals.

“We brought everyone to the table from the outset. Stakeholder input shaped decisions, strengthened governance, and built trust with partners and the community.”

5. Do what it takes to be sure

To stress-test their emergency procedures, the Silvertown team simulated a collision between a bus laden with passengers and a car – and the resultant fire – using 35 actors, including one portraying a motorist trapped in their vehicle. The incident was attended by 70 emergency responders, who arrived on the scene not knowing what to expect.

“It was as real as it can get,” says Mendez Civieta, who made the decision to stage this ambitious play six months before the tunnel opened, while construction was still unfinished.

“The first challenge was convincing the construction team,” she says. “They said it was too early, but any later and we wouldn’t have had time to engage that many stakeholders. If we found something we needed to improve, we needed time to improve it.”

Want to learn more about the Silvertown Tunnel project? Look out for the spring 2026 issue of Project.