The Wakefield Eastern Relief Road (WERR) project consists of 5.5 km of new single carriageway that is proposed to reduce congestion and improve access in the Wakefield area.
The scheme is also crucial to future development of new housing in the area.
As part of the proposed road, two bridges were required, the first being a 63 metre single-span overbridge crossing the River Calder and the other being an underbridge through the Wakefield Kirkgate to Normanton railway line embankment.
The key challenge for this project was to ensure minimal disturbance to the river and in particular the railway line. Therefore, the construction strategy was that the bridges were built offline and manoeuvred into place with enabling works done in advance. For the railway underbridge this was manoeuvred into place in a single 56-hour possession over Christmas 2015, and the decks for the river bridge lifted into place over two nights.
The contractor for this project was a joint venture between HOCHTIEF & Buckingham Group Contracting Ltd. who engaged Coffey to undertake temporary work designs, design checks and impact assessments during the construction of the scheme’s bridges and associated permanent works for the road.
