28 June 2011
The Church Village Bypass project in South Wales has been nominated
in the ‘Major Civils Project - over £50m’ categoryat the 2011
British Construction Industry Awards.
The £90m scheme - the largest single highways
project undertaken by any local authority in the UK - opened last
year two months ahead of schedule.
The project was led by Rhondda Cynon Taf
County Borough Council through a Welsh Assembly Transport Grant. A
team from Capita Symonds provided project management, CDM
coordination and geotechnical advisory services on the 7km
scheme.
Built by contractor Costain, the single
carriageway scheme provides traffic relief for the heavily
congested A473 which passes through the communities of Church
Village, Ton-teg and Llantwit Fardre. The scheme comprises four
roundabouts, a traffic signal controlled junction and around 3km of
side roads which provide links to the existing road network and the
communities. Structures consist of two road bridges, three
footbridges, a pedestrian underpass and two cattle creeps together
with a number of major culverts. To reduce health and safety
risk and to simplify and speed up construction the road bridges
were constructed using precast concrete arches while the culverts
and cattle creeps were constructed using steel arch
designs.
Particular attention was paid to reducing the
visual impact of the bypass through the use of bunding and
extensive planting of around 117,000 trees. This reduces the
effects of traffic noise on the community that will be further
supplemented by selective use of noise barriers.
A pedestrian and cycle community route has
also been provided along the whole length of the scheme. This links
into communities along the route providing a safe, sustainable
alternative form of transport.
A total of 1,400,000 working man hours were
undertaken on the project without any reportable accidents.
The winners will be announced in London on
12th October.