Skip to main content

UK tourist A591 road in Cumbria gets repaired after storm damage

The UK’s A591 road in Cumbria was badly damaged in last December’s storms but recent work on a retaining wall is making life easier for construction crews. The vital Lake District tourist route, which stretches between Grasmere and Keswick, has been closed between St Johns in the Vale and Dunmail Raise following storms Desmond and Eva. A new 106m retaining wall - the length of a football pitch - is being built in the beck alongside the part of the A591 which collapsed during the bad weather. Contractors
June 17, 2016 Read time: 2 mins
The UK’s A591 road in Cumbria was badly damaged in last December’s storms but recent work on a retaining wall is making life easier for construction crews. The vital Lake District tourist route, which stretches between Grasmere and Keswick, has been closed between St Johns in the Vale and Dunmail Raise following storms Desmond and Eva. A new 106m retaining wall - the length of a football pitch - is being built in the beck alongside the part of the A591 which collapsed during the bad weather.

Contractors installed steel supporting posts and concrete panels along 35m of the new wall. Stone masons covered the concrete with local stones reclaimed from the flood in an effort to blend the new walls with the surroundings. Concrete was poured behind the concrete panels up to a thickness of 3.5m before a new road surface was laid on top.

At Thirlmere Reservoir, camera surveys of the drains underneath the southern section of the road allowed full repairs to be done. David Pluse, 8100 Highways England’s project manager for the scheme, said photographs from the construction site allowed significant progress on work that was required.

For more information on companies in this article

Related Content

  • Noise reduction for busy UK motorway
    March 21, 2016
    A key advance has been made in reducing noise along the busy M40 motorway in the UK. The work forms part of a design contract worth up to €2.62 million (£2 million). WSP Parsons Brinkerhoff is reviewing sites along the M40 between junction 3 (Loudwater) and junction 8 (Wheatley), where road noise is a particular issue. Earlier this year, Highways England, working in partnership with the M40 Chiltern Environmental Group, (M40 CEG) Wycombe District Council and South Oxfordshire District Council, ran a
  • New Angolan bridge offers improved connectivity
    September 30, 2013
    Drivers in Angola are benefiting from a bridge that spans the Catumbela River, taking the place of an old structure that had proven not fit for purpose. The US$35 million cable stayed bridge is located in the highway between Benguela and Lobito, around 7km from Angola’s Atlantic coast and is one of a series of new infrastructure developments in the country. Angola suffered a long period of war that impacted on its people and infrastructure. The war resulted in severe damage to the country’s road system alon
  • Mullum Mullum Valley untouched by progress
    July 20, 2012
    Preserving the unspoiled Mullum Mullum Valley was the major consideration when deciding to build a traffic tunnel The answer to one of the major issues facing construction of the A$2.5 billion EastLink route in Australia was simple: construct a tunnel. While it was expensive, those involved realised they had little option but to go underground to protect the environmentally sensitive Mullum Mullum Valley, an untouched area of wood and bushland in Melbourne. EastLink, the 39km toll road project on the easter
  • Digital cameras and VMS improve London and Scottish road safety
    March 18, 2016
    London and Scotland are using VMS and digital cameras to successfully lower road deaths. Road safety measures such as variable message signs (VMS) and digital cameras have boosted road safety in the UK capital London and also in the Scottish Highlands. And the systems need not be a drain on electricity supplies. Full matrix driver information signs from SWARCO Traffic, one of the UK’s leading traffic management technology providers, are being installed for the first time across the Transport for London (TfL