National Highways has finally installed a new access bridge over the A30 in Cornwall, as part of the Chiverton to Carland Cross dualling scheme.
As part of the £330m project, the Tolgroggan access bridge needed to be replaced to accommodate the additional width of new dual carriageway and the existing road. The Tolgroggan bridge has spanned the road near Zelah for 32 years,
The new bridge weighs 275 tonnes, ‘the equivalent weight of 23 double decker buses or 887,097 standard Cornish pasties’.
To enable the bridge lift operation, overseen by principal contractors Costain and structures specialists Keltbray, the A30 was closed at the weekend between the Boxheater junction and Chiverton Cross roundabout.
National Highways said that despite the local 'mizzle', weather conditions and wind speeds remained suitable for the lifting operation and the new 42-metre twin-beam overbridge was lifted into place by a 650-tonne crawler crane on Saturday afternoon.
And after engineers undertook tying-in work on the bridge, dismantling and transporting of the crane and extensive site and traffic management clearance, the A30 was reopened to motorists at 2pm on Sunday. National Highways said this was 16 hours ahead of the anticipated opening on Monday morning.
Although this operation went to plan, National Highways had previously postponed a planned installation between 3 and 6 February because of poor ground conditions and had rescheduled it for the following weekend.
It stressed at the time that the operation remained weather dependent, with last weekend pencilled-in as a ‘contingency weekend’.
Senior project manager Neil Winter said: ‘We thank people for their patience and co-operation while we carried out the work. The operation went as planned and although the weather wasn’t the greatest, conditions were favourable and the preparation work paid dividends.
‘It’s a key milestone for the project, and now that we have the new bridge in place we will be able to switch our attention to the other structures along the route.’
The existing bridge will be demolished later this year, with the upgrade scheduled to open to traffic this winter.
