Mersey Gateway Project scoops double award success
The team behind the Mersey Gateway Project is celebrating after scooping a double award success just a week after construction work has officially started on the new bridge project.
Pictured are award winners (left to right) Jon Freeman from Celtic Technologies, Jeff Hayes and Ian Draycott from the Mersey Gateway Crossings Board and Peter Fitch from Ramboll with the Catalyst Trade Park site in Widnes behind them
The project won the ‘Sustainability’ award at the prestigious national Ground Engineering Awards in London to add to the ‘Best Practice’ title it was awarded at the North West Chartered Institute of Highways and Transportation Awards earlier in the week.
It was also highly commended in the Technical Excellence category at the Ground Engineering awards and in the Sustainability category at the North West CIHT awards.
All the awards were for the clean up work (also called remediation) undertaken at the Catalyst Trade Park site in Widnes, which is one of several key clean up sites along the project route that have relatively high levels of contamination, due to the area’s industrial and chemical heritage.
The 13-month project to clean up contamination at the site was completed earlier this year so the main construction works, to build the new six-lane toll bridge over the River Mersey, could start promptly.
The award successes recognised the team effort – Halton Borough Council planned and oversaw the work, which was delivered by its technical partners Ramboll and Celtic Technologies, and all three were present to receive the awards.
Dr. Peter Fitch, Ramboll’s Principal Contaminated Land Engineer, said: “I am delighted that the success and importance of this work has been recognised by two different leading industry bodies. We worked with specialist experts from Celtic Technologies Ltd to do the work, and almost 17 tonnes of chlorinated solvent were removed from the ground on the site, which was way in excess of what we originally envisaged.”
Trevor Bamber, Project Manager for Celtic Technologies, said: “The work involved lowering the water table and letting air into the soil. A large vacuum was then applied to the ground to remove the solvent and air at the same time as the water was pumped out so that everything could be dealt with together. The water was treated and re-injected back into the ground, while the air was cleaned before being released into the atmosphere.”
Rob Polhill, Leader at Halton Borough Council said: “It’s great news that the Mersey Gateway team is winning awards. A lot of people have invested a great deal of time and energy into the planning work that has got us to the construction phase and I’m really pleased that these awards recognise their achievements.”
Construction work started last week on the project, with the Merseylink Consortium starting work by building access roads across the sensitive saltmarsh environments on both sides of the river.