Opening for business

The BAM Farrans joint venture is delivering a third road crossing over the River Yare estuary in Norfolk. Once complete the bridge will directly support economic regeneration and growth in the town.

Since the middle ages, the port of Great Yarmouth in Norfolk has been synonymous with the fishing industry, and was particularly known for its cold-smoked herring (the famous ‘bloater’).

Through the 1900s and into the 20th century, tourism replaced fishing as the town’s main industry. Then the growth of the North Sea oil and gas – and more recently renewables and offshore wind – saw Yarmouth become an important centre for energy industry services.

Most of the port and enterprise zone sits on a long spit of land bounded on one side by the River Yare and on the other by the North Sea. While this created a safe haven for fishing boats, it means the area is effectively cut off from the rest of Yarmouth and the county more widely. This has long created issues for traffic wanting to get across the river quickly.

In 2016, Norfolk County Council made the construction of a new town-centre river crossing one of its key priorities: recognising its potential to help attract investment to the area, create jobs and give local people a better quality of life.

The new bridge will be a dual carriageway, twin-leaf bascule which opens in the middle to allow taller river traffic through. Once open, the new crossing will ease traffic congestion throughout the town, making journey times shorter and more reliable.

The bridge links the A47 at Harfrey’s roundabout with the port and enterprise zone on the other side of the River Yare. The A47 is the main east-west corridor in East Anglia, linking Lowestoft and Great Yarmouth on the North Sea coast, to Norwich, Kings Lynn, Peterborough and beyond.

As early as 2017, the Department for Transport earmarked £98 million to cover the vast majority of the construction costs for the new bridge, and in 2018 the Secretary of State for Transport confirmed it as a national priority.

In January 2019 Norfolk County Council awarded the construction project to a joint venture (JV) between two leading firms – BAM Nuttall and Farrans Construction – with work starting in January 2021. The JV is responsible for the bridge itself, as well as the enabling road works and landscaping on both banks of the Yare.

Careful groundwork

A small but important part of the preparation work involved creating new habitations for a number of water voles found around the project site. Until recently, water voles were considered to be the fastest declining mammal in the UK, but conservation efforts are paying off, particularly in East Anglia where population numbers are now gradually increasing.

The first challenge when it came to the actual construction was to create the embankments on each side of the river, which had to be built over poor ground conditions. This involved installing an interlinked network of pre-cast concrete piles, to support the structures and prevent any future settlement.

The embankments have been constructed using the ‘reinforced earth’ technique, with a load transfer platform topped by successive layers of geotextiles and fill material, capped off by pre-cast concrete beams and barriers along each side of the carriageway.

The west side embankment, which is in a more residential area, has been planted with vegetation to soften its appearance.

Crossing highways

The JV team has also created a bridge/underpass, supported by steel tubular piles, to span Southtown Road, which runs alongside the waterfront. Using pre-cast beams to create the main span for this underpass allowed for rapid installation over a weekend closure, minimising disruption to traffic on Southtown Road.

The carriageway surface of the underpass was completed using in-situ casting, with live traffic flowing below the works. A second, smaller underpass has also been created on the eastern approach to the bridge.

Installing the bridge

The support structures that allow the bascule to lift span both into the existing riverside quays and out into the River Yare. Creating these abutments involved excavating the existing quays to expose and assess them so they could be reinforced, as they were in a poor condition.

BAM Farrans brought in a specialist marine jacking platform to support the crane as it installed the necessary piling, which enabled the bascule pits and abutments to be constructed.

Meanwhile, a specialist fabricator in Belgium was creating the two giant steel leaves for the bascule, each weighing 770 tonnes and measuring 45m by 24m.

The first leaf was loaded onto a delivery barge and brought across the North Sea in early 2023, followed rapidly by the second. BAM Farrans successfully installed both leaves during a 72-hour river possession, starting on 21 March 2023.

Connected works

Once the Herring Bridge is finished, BAM Farrans will be upgrading the nearby A47 junction and connecting roads with a five-arm roundabout and dual carriageway, with all the associated signage, smart LED signalling and landscaping.

Dealing with the unexpected

In February 2023, a BAM Farrans contractor working on site uncovered an unexploded WWII bomb, during dredging work. Despite the best-laid plans for a controlled explosion by Army experts, the device detonated unexpectedly.

Thankfully, no one was hurt and extensive assessments showed that there was no significant damage, as mitigation measures had already been put in place to guard against the impact of an unintended detonation.

Community engagement

On such a large-scale project, in the middle of a busy town, it has been vital to maintain effective communications with local residents and businesses. BAM Farrans has kept stakeholders up to date through many different communications channels including regular newsletters, a dedicated web site and social media, and face-to-face meetings with local groups.

Local residents also got involved in the project by helping to select its name (the Herring Bridge was the final choice, with its links back to the town’s fishing heritage).

Many small and medium sized businesses in and around the town have been involved in the project, which has provided numerous employment and work experience opportunities. Close links between BAM Farrans, the County Council and local schools and colleges are helping to ensure that the project delivers a lasting legacy in terms of skills and expertise.

“I am confident the completion of this long-awaited new bridge and further planned investments will bring much prosperity to the town and out region, as the fishing industries of our past did before it.”

Councillor Graham Plant, Norfolk County Council

Don’t just take our word for it…

Construction Wave featured the project on its web site, as it neared completion Discover more

Norfolk County Council used this video to show how the project is providing employment and training opportunities for local young people Meet some of the team

The BBC reported the arrival of the second leaf, by sea from Belgium, along with the floating crane being used to install it Read the article

ITV News reported on the bomb blast that briefly disrupted work on the site Watch the video