A595 Duddon Bridge to Muncaster resurfacing

The resurfacing of the main arterial road through West Cumbria was successfully completed 2 nights ahead of schedule.

The project scope

The scheme involved the resurfacing of 3km of the A595 over a 16km stretch between Duddon Bridge and Muncaster. This is the main arterial route through West Cumbria and serves the Sellafield nuclear site which employs 14,000 people.

Our scope included:

• Surveys and setting out
• Road closure applications
• Traffic management
• Planing out of the existing road surface
• Excavation and minor civil works
• Installation of 60 new gullies
• Laying of binder and surface course
• ­Road markings
• Replacement of cat’s eyes

Key quantities:

• 20mm binder: 1,534 Te
• New Gullies: 60 t
• Aggregate Industries Supercurve Surface Course: 2,101 t

Challenges & successes

To minimise disruption to road users, residents, and commuters to / from the Sellafield site and to maintain safety for our workforce, the gully replacement and surfacing work was carried out between 7pm and 5am each night. We successfully reopened the road at 5am each morning to allow Sellafield commuter traffic to flow freely.

Due to the location of the works, it was not possible to apply detours, so we operated a traffic management convoy system to escort residents to and from their properties throughout the night.

The adverse winter weather also meant that we had to be flexible in our approach to the project and we redeployed our team several times to other projects when the weather was too severe to progress the project.