Archaeological excavations to begin at site of Forth replacement crossing

August 16, 2010 in Forth Replacement Crossing, Forth Road Bridge, South Queensferry, new forth road bridge | No comments

BBC News recently ran a story announcing that archaeological were to begin this month (August, 2010) following the award of a contract to Edinburgh based company Headland Archaeology. According to the report, initial studies will focus on the area of St.Margaret’s Hope and the Echline Fields, sites identified by Transport Scotland and Historic Scotland as being of interest. Fife newspaper The Courier added that investigation will involve “geophysical survey, trial trenches and hand excavation”.

The Forthspan bid was recently rocked by news that the worlds largest bridge builder, Vinci Construction has pulled out of the bid. It was promptly replaced by MT Hojgaard who were involved in the building of the Oresund bridge between Sweden and Denmark. As reported by The Scotsman, there continue to be concerns about the ability of both Forthspan and it’s rival the Forth Crossing Constructors Group to last right through the tendering process and to provide a competitive bid.

The Forthspan collaboration includes major constructors Balfour Beatty, Morgan EST and BAM Nuttall and now joined by MT Hojgaard who have replaced Vinci, previously the leading organisation. Opposing them is the Forth Crossing Constructors Group, a consortium consisting of Morrison Construction, Hochtief, American Bridge and ACS.

I don’t come across many of these, but I did find an objection raised by Cala Homes against the proposed work on the M9 junction to facilitate the forth replacement crossing access around Winchburgh. Interestingly, it looks like Transport Scotland proposes to lease the land from Cala during the course of the work, rather than using it’s compulsory purchase powers. Have any other formal objections in writing? Let me know.

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Forth replacement crossing news roundup for July

July 25, 2010 in Forth Replacement Crossing, Forth Road Bridge, Scottish Parliament, South Queensferry, new forth road bridge | No comments

Cancelling the replacement forth crossing would cost over £22million according to the Scottish executive., Responding to a question raised in the Scottish Parliament on the 14th of July, Transport Minister Stewart Stevenson gave this total explaining that wind down and staff redeployment costs would be in addition to this figure and could not at present be estimated.

Work has also begun to move a sewerage pipe near Port Edgar, some 200metres to the sast as part of preparation for construction to commence on the new Forth bridge. Scottish Water has been instructed by Transport Scotland to start this work, who are outsourcing it to a local firm AMC Subsea based in Leith, Edinburgh. By moving the pipe now, it will not delay construction on the bridge when this is due to start, estimated next year.

An economic feasibility study has been completed on the replacement forth bridge, by S.C. Wamuziri of Napier University and A.G.F. Clearie of engineering firm Jacobs (the current project managers). It is available to purchase from it’s publishers ‘Emerald’. If anyone has a copy, I would be interested in reading it.

I’ve recently become aware of the blog called A place to stand written by a political nay-sayer, blogging on amongst other things the replacement Forth Road bridge. While his posts (as blogs inevitably are) are all personal opinion, they do make an interesting read as a counter to the usual political dogma we have thrown at us. Along similiar lines, the Caledonian Mercury online paper, recently posted an opinion piece by Lawrence Marshall, chairman of the Forthright Alliance re-affirming his opinion on why we do not need a replacement crossing, but should repair the existing bridge instead.

And finally, chances are you shouldn’t use facebook at work. You probably do, but really you shouldn’t. Well, our civil servants have found a good way around all this. With the current social media crazy, why not join facebook under a work account, and then it must be OK. I present to you, the Forth Road Bridge facebook account run by our government funded friends at FETA.

website downtime

July 23, 2010 in Uncategorized | No comments

Apologies for the downtime over the last week. Our host has performed a serious hardware upgrade and it took a considerable amount of time to move the site across. Hopefully this will increase the speed of the site for everyone. It’s almost like road works on the Forth Road bridge!

News round-up for May for the new Forth Road Bridge, South Queensferry and the surround Forth Estuary area

June 3, 2010 in Forth Replacement Crossing, Forth Road Bridge, Queensferry Gazette, Scottish Parliament | No comments

Back in April it was announced that a Historic Scotland archaelogical team was appointed by Transport Scotland to oversee excavations this summer. This work is being undertaken now so it can be completed ahead of the ‘main’ date for construction to start in 2011.

This construction will, in part, be overseen by Mr David Climie, who was appointed Project Directory by Transport Scotland. He has a range of previous engineering experience working on bridges including the Acoma Narrows Bridge project in the United States in 2007 and China’s Jiangyin suspension bridge.

Another man in the spotlight is Steve Kite, who has done a short promotional video of Arup’s involvement in the Forth Replacement Crossing.

The project has moved forward politically recently, with overwhelming support in the Scottish Parliament when put to a vote. Green MSP’s were the only objectors with Margo MacDonald and Margaret Smith (Edinburgh West) abstaining. As part of the bill, following continued protest by local residents. These measures include limits on working hours and other measures to reduce noise and disruption. For some, including Transport Minister Stewart Stevenson, work on the bridge can not start soon enough.

Finally, the current Forth Road Bridge operator FETA, is keen not to be cut out of the picture, calling on Transport Scotland to give it the right to manage the replacement Forth Crossing when it is finally opened. This may seem logical, although did not go down particularly well when it was also announced a few weeks later that the top brass of the body have run up £12k of travel expenses including many trips abroad.

Political positions on the replacement Forth crossing

April 24, 2010 in Politics | No comments

With the general election campaign in full swing, we explore each political parties stance on the Forth replacement crossing.

SNP
The Scottish National Party pledge that the Forth replacement crossing project is firmly protected from cuts to public expenditure. From their own press release on their party manifesto, they claim they will: “protect policies like free personal care, concessionary travel, the SNP Government’s £1.25 billion investment in new schools and the Forth Replacement Crossing”.

Labour
The labour position is not much different from the SNP’s with the party stating in it’s notes on the manifesto that it will build a replacement Forth crossing. Strangely it makes no mention of the new bridge in it’s actual manifesto.

Liberal Democrats
The Scottish Liberal Democrats make no mention of the new forth crossing in their manifesto

Conservatives
The Scottish Conservatives are also in favour of a new Forth Crossing, with their manifesto stating that “We support the construction of a new Forth crossing which needs to be recognised as the most pressing transport priority in Scotland.”

Green Party
The Scottish Green Party is the only party politically opposed to the bridge. On their website they state that they want to “fix the bridge, save billions”. They urge that following the review into cable detoriation on the old bridge, they could be repaired and replaced for just a fraction of the cost.

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Forth Road Bridge public meetings for residents

March 13, 2010 in Forth Road Bridge, South Queensferry | No comments

FETA, the Forth Road Bridge authority recently distributed flyers to local residents advising them of two upcoming public meetings designed to discuss the work required to replace the bearings on the bridge’s approach viaducts; a contract that was recently awarded to Balfour Beatty. that was announced at the end of February.

On Monday the 15th of March, the first meeting will be held at the Forth Road Bridge Administration office in South Queensferry and the following evening on the 16th of March it will be held in the Queensferry Hotel in North Queensferry. Both meetings are open to all and scheduled to start at 7p.m. with refreshments provided.

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News round-up: Dedicated bus route to be slower and Replacement bridge banks

March 4, 2010 in Forth Replacement Crossing, South Queensferry | No comments

The Queensferry and District Community Council are reported to have stated that the proposed use of the existing Forth Road Bridge as a dedicated public transport corridor would actually make journey times between Edinburgh and Fife slower. This is because the new routes would have a number of traffic light controlled junctions (up to 6) that would delay buses from re-joining the main route back into Edinburgh or Fife. The powers that be, however suggest that with correct prioritising of signals for public transport, then this isn’t really an issue. It does seem slightly odd though, that what currently is a road straight through onto the bridge at either end cannot continued to be used by buses with slipways directly onto the M90 in the North and the A90 in the South.

In addition to the story above, The Scotsman has also recently run a story that a National infrastructure bank is needed to raise and control finances on the Forth Replacement Crossing project.

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