As many of you will know, we have been working on the repairs to Bond Lane bridge since Summer 2019. Unfortunately, it has hardly stopped raining since we started, leading to significant delays in the project as our contractors moved off-site to alternative, drier contracts.
We have now completed both the installation of the soil anchoring bolts and walings (horizontal supports for reinforcing upright materials), which stabilise the retaining walls on both bridges – and the sheet piling works, which stabilise the embankment behind the failed set of retaining walls. During these works, we had to pull out the rest of the team from the site for health and safety reasons. Large mobile equipment, moving lots of heavy rock in standing water on the saturated ground could have been very dangerous otherwise.
The repairs to the bridge deck steel structure are virtually complete now – we just need to replace the original steel sheeting with new green screens. These are designed to screen the conveyor from sight, as well as stopping any debris falling from the conveyor on to the road below. We are endeavouring to complete this work as quickly as possible.
Once the remaining sheeting has been taken down, the scaffold will be removed and the following jobs will be completed:
- backfill behind the sheet piles
- backfill under the conveyor
- extending the sheeting
- bringing in the heavy plant to remove all waste materials and general rubbish from the site
- tidying up and landscaping.
When all the work is complete, the finished job then has to be signed off by Tarmac’s own consulting engineers and Leicestershire County Council’s Highways Department.
Our target for re-opening is 20th April 2020, but if practical and feasible, we may complete earlier.
Thank you all for your patience during this time.
If you have any enquiries about the Bond Lane project and programme, please do not hesitate to email [email protected]