Forth Crossing Constructors

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October and November Forth Replacement Crossing news round-up

December 11, 2011 in Forth Replacement Crossing | 1 comment

It’s been a while since we last had a round-up of the major news stories affecting the Forth Replacement Crossing’s progress. Below are the major items I’ve come across.

M9 Spur works and average speed cameras on M9 Spur and M90 approach
In addition to the previous post detailing the average speed cameras in Fife along the M90 and feeder roads, there are currently also average speed cameras on the M9 spur and the M9. These are in place during the early phases of construction of the M9 junction 1A upgrade. Just as in Fife, they involve hard shoulder closure and lane restrictions to allow the construction of overhead gantries. This work is being undertaken by Irish firm John Sisk also known as Sisk Roadbridge.

According to a report in Fife Today, 95% of motorists are obeying the M90 average speed of 40mph. I find this fairly surprising travelling that way quite frequently and being overtaken a lot while sitting at 40mph for such a long stretch. Of course I disagree the assertion in the article that this low speed increases the safety for workers, mainly as we’ve not seen any work taking place yet!

Post-construction management of bridges to be privatised
Various reports suggest the completed bridge will be managed by a private company. This follows the wind down of the current operator FETA, whose board was sacked by the SNP Transport minister Keith Brown and will not be bidding for the new contract. A rather curious move, when FETA was widely considered to being doing a good job on the current crossing. Current jobs are promised to be secure to be taken up by the new managing company.

Project information
There is now a dedicated phone number for enqueries relating to the Forth Road Bridge. Thanks to Queensferry Districts Community Council for bringing this to my attention. The number is: 0800 078 6910

There have been a series of meet the contractor events. I was unable to attend, but the slides have been posted here if you are interested.

Contracts and tenders
A number of tenders have been put out for work relating to the new Forth bridge. I don’t keep a close eye on these sites so I’m sure I’m missing quite a few. However below are a selection:
Roadsweeper hire
Security Services
Concrete cutting

Port edgar long sea outfall (sewarage works)
I’ve found a case study posted detailing the work that was undertaken at Port Edgar last year on moving the sewerage pipe. It’s quite an interesting read with a few nice photos.

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Forth Replacement Crossing construction begins: Average speed cameras for Fife approach to Forth Road bridge

October 2, 2011 in Forth Replacement Crossing | 2 comments

** 13/10/2011 Update ** Thanks to Ian Smith for alerting me to the fact that the scheme also covers the A92 up to the Crossgates junction. I haven’t been this way myself, so the updated map is my best estimate.

Those of you who have recently travelled to or from the bridge in Fife will have noticed speed restrictions in place and the closure of the hard shoulder. The road works are scheduled to last until the summer of 2012 and are for the installation of an Intelligent Traffic System (ITS), or average speed cameras to most of us. They are in place from the Forth road bridge to Halbeath near Dunfermline along the M90 and also on the A823 on the approach to the M90 from Pitreavie. Transport Scotland say that the initial phase of hard shoulder closures are for the construction of gantries upon which to site the cameras, which use automatic number plate recognition to catch speeding drivers.

new 40mph limit for average speed cameras on approach to forth road bridge

new 40mph limit for average speed cameras on approach to forth road bridge

The image above shows the extent of the current road works with the old 40mph limit at the approach to the bridge marked in purple. You can see the zone now extends to the Pitreavie roundabout (blue marker), Halbeath (green) and Crossgates on the A92 (yellow).

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Bridge design & construction exchange

March 16, 2011 in Forth Replacement Crossing | No comments

IQPC – the world wide organiser of business conferences – is hosting a three day event in Amsterdam in May entitled “Bridge design & construction exchange”.

Aimed at business leaders, executives and industry experts, this conference will include a large number of well known speakers from the bridge construction world, including David Climie speaking on behalf of Transport Scotland giving a keynote address on progress of the Forth Replacement Crossing. The conference runs from the 15th to 17th of May at the Raddison Blu hotel, Amsterdam. One of the other speakers, Steve Kite from ARUP, has given IQPC a short interview in which he discusses his involvement in the Forth Replacement Crossing.

From companies involved in the Forth Replacement Crossing project, aside from representatives from Transport Scotland and ARUP, David Mackenzie who is CEO at Flint Neill will also be speaking. From the Forth Crossing Constructors consortium, there will be representation from Hochtief, while the Forthspan consortium has a speaker from MT Hojgaard. Please note that most of these speakers are not necessaries speaking about the Forth Replacement Crossing, but more likely about bridge design in general.

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Archaeological excavations to begin at site of Forth replacement crossing

August 16, 2010 in Forth Replacement Crossing, Forth Road Bridge, new forth road bridge, Scottish Parliament, South Queensferry | 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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Transport Scotland pledges new Forth Bridge to be on time and on budget

February 7, 2010 in new forth road bridge | No comments

Transport Scotland has re-iterated that the new Forth bridge will be on schedule and be within the £2.3bn budget set. This despite the current economic downturn and the fact that the Forth Crossing Bill has not made it through parliament yet.

Meanwhile the two consortiums who are proposing to bid for the project have requested further groundwork (and marine) investigations to be carried out. Details are currently being collected from both Forthspan and Forth Crossing Constructors (the two interested consortia) on what these works should entail, and are expected to last around 8 weeks

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