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

  • Hats off to Polypipe
    May 15, 2020
    Ridgidrain allows pipe sections to be cut without affecting pipe integrity.
  • Rain storms destroy Beijing’s road surfaces
    August 17, 2012
    As heavy rain storms continue to batter the Chinese capital, Beijing, the number of collapsed road pavements has soared to record levels, according to the city's road and bridge maintenance authority. Since the start of the flooding on July 21 until mid-August, Beijing Municipal Bridge Maintenance Management Group, a State-owned business set up to repair the city’s bridges and roads, received nearly 300 emergency calls regarding collapsed road surfaces.
  • Work on St Petersburg bridge project
    June 20, 2016
    Contractor ICA Construction used two Aquajet robotic hydrodemolition machines at the top of a 120m-high bridge pylon located in the city of St Petersburg. The two Aquajet robotic water cutters were used to remove surplus concrete from around the inner steel structure of the bridge pylon. This link spans the River Neva and forms part of the Western High-Speed Diameter (WHSD) route in St Petersburg. The WHSD is a highly important route for the region and will provide a key connection between the Scandinavi
  • Innovations in formwork aid project completion
    February 14, 2012
    Innovative formwork solutions are helping to get projects completed on or before time, meaning savings in time and money as Patrick smith reports. The use of flexible, modular formwork to create innovative structures out of concrete is helping to increase productivity and thus drive down completion time and costs.