Skip to main content

Balfour Beatty lifts bridge into place over UK’s M54

In the UK, Balfour Beatty has lifted a new bridge into place over the M54 motorway as part of a €14.56 million (£12 million) project to connect a new high-tech business park to the road network and to provide access for the new Jaguar Land Rover plant. The bridge, which will serve the i54 business park in South Staffordshire, was delivered for Staffordshire County Council, Wolverhampton City Council and South Staffordshire Council, as part of the Midlands Highways Alliance framework.
May 14, 2014 Read time: 2 mins
In the UK, 1146 Balfour Beatty has lifted a new bridge into place over the M54 motorway as part of a €14.56 million (£12 million) project to connect a new high-tech business park to the road network and to provide access for the new 6337 Jaguar Land Rover plant.

The bridge, which will serve the i54 business park in South Staffordshire, was delivered for 4798 Staffordshire County Council, Wolverhampton City Council and South Staffordshire Council, as part of the Midlands Highways Alliance framework.

The bridge lift was carried out during a full road closure overnight on Saturday 11 January. Balfour Beatty raised the bridge to the required height at its site compound adjacent to the motorway and then transported it along the M54 on self-propelled modular transport units so that it could be slotted into position.

The bridge is a composite structure comprising of four 155cm weathered steel beams underneath an in-situ concrete deck, which weighs 411tonnes with a Span length of 40.8m. The bridge deck was constructed on site, using beams supplied by Mabey Bridge. Pre-assembly of the beams and deck at Balfour Beatty’s site compound prior to the lift reduced the amount of time the motorway needed to be closed for installation.

Mark Farrah, Balfour Beatty managing director for the North and Midlands Division, said, “I’m delighted to have delivered this important milestone for the Midlands Highways Alliance. This was a complex operation and the smooth delivery was the result of meticulous planning by Staffordshire County Council and the Balfour Beatty project team on site.”

For more information on companies in this article

Related Content

  • Balfour Beatty wins Midlands road technology maintenance package
    April 23, 2014
    Balfour Beatty has secured its third Regional Technology Maintenance Contract (RTMC) from the Highways Agency. This deal is worth some €10.56 million (£8.7 million) over five years. The package involves maintaining around 28,000 technology assets on behalf of the Highways Agency and will cover both the Highways Agency’s Area 7 (the East Midlands) and Area 9 (the West Midlands). The technology service provided by Balfour Beatty includes responsibility for managing and maintaining road-side technology systems
  • Formwork developments in bridge construction
    February 23, 2012
    Major infrastructure projects worldwide are relying on innovative formwork solutions for speed and safety as Patrick Smith reports. The 970m long cable-stayed Golden Ears Bridge crossing the Fraser River in Vancouver, Canada, is the core element of a six-lane, highway project near the Canadian west coast.
  • Sunderland’s New Wear Crossing takes shape
    February 16, 2017
    The New Wear Crossing will be the first bridge to be built over the River Wear in Sunderland, UK, for more than 40 years Raising the bridge’s 100m-tall pylon promised to be a stunning visual sight, but also a tricky operation dictated by extremely variable local weather. World Highways went to press just before the operation, but not before the pylon had arrived by barge on January 7. It had completed a two-day crossing of the often unpredictable North Sea from the Belgian port of Ghent where it was f
  • Superlative formwork’s global appeal
    April 25, 2013
    The latest formwork solutions are enabling some tough bridge-building projects to be delivered in South America and Europe, while the world’s largest construction equipment show is seeing the merits of other cutting-edge formwork. Guy Woodford reports. Taking a road and rail link across one of South America’s largest rivers, together with its swamps and floodplain, calls for a new crossing of superlative dimensions. Two 135.5m pylons for the third bridge across the Orinoco River in Venezuela are taking shap