Bridge 2 deck refurbishment, Sellafield, Cumbria

We safely completed the refurbishment of the bridge deck whilst maintaining access to the Sellafield nuclear site and railway station.

The project scope

The scheme involved the removal of Bridge 2 deck surface and footpaths to carry out structural repairs and waterproofing before reinstatement of the asphalt surface on a critical vehicle / pedestrian bridge outside the Sellafield nuclear site main gate for our clients Morgan Sindall and Cumbria County Council. This was a critical project due to its location being immediately next to the main Sellafield site access gate and Sellafield railway station – both of which require 24/7 access. Our scope of work included:

• Surveys and setting out.
• Traffic and pedestrian management.
• Construction of a temporary pedestrian walkway.
• Planing out of the existing bridge deck road surface and footpaths.
• Excavation beneath bridge deck.
• Repairs to the bridge deck structure using Metoset concrete repair resin.
• Silicone waterproofing of the bridge deck structure using our specialist sub-contractor Volker Laser.
• Installation of geotextile layers to the bridge deck.
• Reconstruction of kerbing and footpaths.
• Reinstatement of base, binder and wearing road and footpath asphalt surface.
• White lining of the road surface.

Key quantities:

• Planing & resurfacing: t
• Kerbing: 20 m
• Silicone waterproofing: 250 m²

Challenges & successes

The bridge provides a single access route to one of the Sellafield site’s main access gates and to the Sellafield railway station, which are in constant use by many of the site’s 10,000 staff and vehicles.

To maintain constant access, we coordinated our work with Sellafield Ltd (site owner/operator), Morgan Sindall, Network Rail and Cumbria County Council. To minimise disruption, we worked flexibly around key site access requirements and worked 12-hour day and night shifts to complete the work as quickly as possible.

To maintain traffic flow, we installed traffic management and vehicle segregation to allow one lane to remain open and avoided working at peak traffic commuter times.