Skip to main content

Bridge replacement assembled overnight

Highways service provider Balfour Beatty Mott MacDonald has completed a major milestone in a project to replace a bridge for use by the local community over the M5 motorway near the city of Bristol, south-west England.
February 21, 2012 Read time: 1 min
The new bridge is lifted into position over the M5 Motorway
Highways service provider 1530 Balfour Beatty Mott MacDonald has completed a major milestone in a project to replace a bridge for use by the local community over the M5 motorway near the city of Bristol, south-west England.
The operation was carried out overnight to minimise disruption to the travelling public.
Working on behalf of the 1441 UK Highways Agency, Balfour Beatty Mott MacDonald carried out the £1.6 million (€e1.9 million) project to replace the bridge at Lawrence Weston after the previous concrete structure had become weakened from vehicle strikes over many years.
The replacement structure is a low maintenance, single span steel bridge suitable for pedestrians and cyclists, forming a crucial link in a south-west cycle route and providing access for non-motorised users from the city to reach the countryside.
Weighing 92 tonnes and with a span of 66m, the new structure was manufactured in three sections before being transported to site where it was assembled and lifted into place during the overnight closure of the motorway.

For more information on companies in this article

Related Content

  • State-of-the art road tunnels in construction and use of ITS
    April 25, 2013
    A wealth of major road tunnel construction projects and significant cant ITS installations within existing key road tunnels have been recently completed or will soon be underway. Guy Woodford examines some of them. A state-of-the art Tunnel Boring Machine (TBM) - the 10th largest ever to be built worldwide will be put to work later this year on New Zealand Transport Agency’s landmark Waterview Connection project in Auckland. The giant Herrenknecht-manufactured machine will be used to construct the twin 2.5
  • Rebuilding a historic bridge linking the US and Canada
    March 8, 2016
    While many road authorities in North America are finding it difficult to stretch their bridge assets beyond half a century, one bridge is closing in on its centenary - David Arminas reports The international Peace Bridge, connecting the Canadian province of Ontario with the US state of New York, is 88 years young this year, and still going strong.
  • 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.
  • Upgrading a busy A road link in the UK
    July 4, 2018
    The upgrade to the UK’s busy A14 route will address a significant traffic bottleneck - Mike Woof writes The UK is suffering badly from traffic congestion, a problem that is particularly severe in and around its major cities. Lack of investment in road construction over many years has resulted in a major backlog of work, while the country has seen growing vehicle numbers. To make matters worse, there have been few additions to the major road network since the late 1980s and early 1990s. And the combinatio