23/2/2012 - Northside bridge begins to take shape : Cumbria County Council

The first massive steel beams which will form the backbone of Workington's new road bridge will be lifted into place this weekend.

Six 60-tonne 'I' beams will be positioned on the north side of the River Derwent between the specially constructed abutment and concrete bridge pier built on the northern bank of the river. The beams, which are up to 3.5 metres deep and roughly 25 metres long, will be welded together in pairs so that three main steel supports can span the 50 metre gap between the abutment and the pier.

As the beams will be positioned above the A596 Northside Road, it will be necessary to close the A596 this weekend between the Northside roundabout and the temporary road bridge so that the crane lifting the beams and delivery vehicles have room to operate.

Diversions will be in place redirecting traffic from 10pm on Friday February 24th to 6am Monday February 27th. The road may be reopened earlier than 6am Monday if works have finished, but that will depend on how the works go and weather conditions (the beam lifts cannot take place in high winds).

The next two stages of major beam lifts will be to perform the same operation on the south side of the river, where a similar 50-metre gap will need to be spanned between the south abutment and south pier, and then finally lift into place the biggest beams of all: the 60-metre steel beams that will span the River Derwent between the two piers. There will be no need to close the A596 for these two stages as construction vehicles can work on the south side of the river on the bridge approach road next to the football stadium.

All of the beams of the bridge structure are expected to be in place by mid-April, at which point Cumbria County Council's main contractor on the project, Birse Civils, will be able to start constructing the bridge deck around the beams. The three-span structure will be clad in a mixture of new sandstone and recovered sandstone from the original Northside Bridge destroyed in the floods of November 2009.

Once the new Northside bridge is open (expected August 2012), the temporary road bridge that was built in 72 days and opened in April 2010 will be closed and removed by the contractors Morgan Sindall.

Building the new bridge has been made possible thanks to £11.17 million funding from the Department for Transport. The bridge will carry vehicles, pedestrians and cyclists on a similar alignment to that of the previous Northside bridge.

Cllr Tony Markley, Cumbria County Council’s cabinet member for highways and economic development, said:

"It will be a big moment for Workington to see the bridge taking shape. This weekend will see some key work on the north side of the river. I think the moment a lot of people are looking forward to is when the biggest beams of all go into place across the river in a few weeks time. That's going to involve the UK's biggest crane and some massive amounts of steel being moved around. We've done all we can to keep the disruption to a minimum and I'm sure local people appreciate the need to close the road this weekend."

UPDATE: View timelapse video of the north beam being lifted into place here