The search is on for a specialist contractor to strip and replace substandard cladding at Carillion’s unfinished Royal Liverpool Hospital project.

The Royal Liverpool and Broadgreen University Hospitals NHS Trust is working with replacement main contractor Laing O’Rourke and Arup to find a specialist contractor to start on the major refit in March.

Around 10,000 sq m of unitised cladding will need to be stripped and replaced on the landmark building project with the job programmed to take 20 months.

Last month hospital trust CEO Steve Warburton confirmed the 646-bed project had been further delayed until at least 2022.

Around £285m has already been spent on the originally budgeted £429m project, with a further £300m needed to complete the hospital, including recladding costs.

The Trust’s facade consultant Wintech has proposed the new design, to keep lead-in times short and open the market to a wider selection of cladding specialists.

This proposes a rainscreen system with a new lightweight structural framing system backing wall for the opaque wall elements and a 65mm wide stick curtain wall system, Kawneer AA 110, for the vertical glazing elements.

Pre-construction work on the project is expected to take around 17 weeks with the main construction phase lasting 66 weeks.

The challenging project will require working around live M&E services and other trades.

Works will be carried out on four elevations simultaneously, requiring around 40 installers and support workers.

Interested firms have until the end of January to complete prequalification documents.