BAM Builds bus bridge to decongest town

BAM Nuttall is working on the construction of the first phase of the South East Hampshire Bus Rapid Transport project for Hampshire County Council. This is part of the council's strategy to alleviate the pressure on the current infrastructure serving the Gosport peninsula and reduce the need to travel by car.

BAM Nuttall project manager Clive Langdown explains some of the current challenges
facing the peninsula. ‘Gosport is the largest populated town in Britain without a railway station; the only way in and out is via road, so in the morning it is very congested trying to get out and in the evening very congested trying to get in,’ he says. 'The council is trying to encourage people to use the busses.'

The first phase sees BAM build 3.5km of dedicated busway along a disused railway line from Fareham to Gosport. ‘The project is two-thirds of the way through, most of the earthworks are complete and a fair amount of the black top is down;' says Mr Langdown.
The busway and footways are being built using traditional construction techniques and surfaced with asphalt.

As part of the project, the team needed to replace an existing level crossing with a new bridge that would cross one of only two main roads into Gosport, Newgate Lane. The bridge would enable the new busway to run under the main road, but while it was under construction Newgate Lane needed to be closed.

‘The main challenge we faced was to keep one of the main arteries into the peninsula open,’ explained Mr Langdown. 'We needed to build the new bridge on the line of this existing road, so we came up with a scheme that diverted traffic to one side of this main artery so we could keep it open while we built the bridge on the line.’

The road was on diversion for 45 weeks, but reopened in August following the completion of the bridge. ‘The diverted road kept the traffic flowing as it had previously, which was not very fast during rush hour!’ says Mr Langdown.

The £24 million BRT scheme was funded with a £20m grant from the government and a further £4m from Hampshire County Council.

Chairman of transport for south Hampshire and executive member for environment and transport at Hampshire County Council Mel Kendal acknowledges the work caused some disruption, but that the diversion scheme devised by BAM worked well. ‘We recognise that the work at Newgate Lane has caused some inconvenience for local residents and commuters, but the provision of a temporary road enabled the flow of two way traffic to continue,’ says Mr Kendal.

‘We have done all we can to ensure that disruption was kept to a minimum and that the work was carried out as quickly and efficiently as possible.’

Another challenging aspect of the project is the very limited site access. ‘We are working on a long, narrow strip with only two or three access points, so the logistics of planning the work are quite complicated,’ says Mr Langdown

‘If you start excavating for drainage or anything similar then you'll block access for everything else. Planning is the key thing, you need to get everything in the right order and make sure it's on time’.

Further Info
Peter Bishop - Head of Public Relations & Corporate Communication
BAM Nuttall Limited
St James House, Knoll Road, Camberley,
Surrey GU15 3XW
Tel: 01276 63484
Fax:01276 66060
peter.bishop@bamnuttall.co.uk

Courtesy of Construction News September 2011