Suttle Projects has recently been awarded a scour protection subcontract contract worth £1.4m by construction business Osborne. The contract covers maintenance to 8 rail over river bridges across Network Rail’s Wessex Route for Osborne, with works to be carried out in Autumn 2014.
The scour protection work is required on the 8 identified bridges to elongate the life of the structures and to stop further erosion of the riverbeds. Suttle Projects will carry this out by creating cofferdams using sheet piles and over pumping using high capacity pumps, or diverting flow, depending on the rivers’ characteristics. Once this temporary dry work environment is created, repair work is carried out on the bridges together with any associated works.
Joe Paine, Suttle Projects’ Director said ‘we’re delighted to be working with Osborne on this series of scour protection works.’ Joe went on to say ‘We have worked on many similar Network Rail scour protection projects over the last few years, although one of the 8 bridges in this contract needed a specialist solution.
The bridge in question has less than 2m headroom, with deep, fast flowing water. Traditional sheet piling techniques would not be ideal for this set-up, so we have created our own underwater remote control excavator with the cab and engine removed so that it can be floated under the low headroom bridge on a pontoon, and operated by remote control.’
Steve Carr, Project Manager at Osborne, said:
“Suttle Projects have been awarded this contract due to their in house knowledge and experience, they are also very keen to get involved with the design process making sure that the proposed solution is practicable and can be installed. Suttle Projects are also committed to the continual improvement on site and the development of our STOP Think development programme which is set to improve the culture on site.”
