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The facts
Client: South Wales Trunk Road
Agency
Location: Newport, South Wales
Services: Highways Maintenance & Design,
Drainage Design, Technical Audit, Lighting & Signing, Tunnels
Refurbishment & Maintenance, Transportation Assessments and
Audits, NEC Project Management, Environmental, Structures
Assessments & Inspections, Road Safety Audits
Sector: Highways
Contract Type: Framework
Start/Completion: 2011
The project
On Tuesday 26 July 2011 Capita Symonds received a call
from the South Wales Trunk Road Agency that led to an intensive, 72
hour period of specialist technical response activity in a media
‘goldfish bowl’.
An articulated lorry was ablaze in the
westbound portal of the M4 Brynglas Tunnels on the outskirts of
Newport which had resulted in the closure of the entire motorway
network in the South Wales area. A team of experts from Capita
Symonds was to play a critical role in the enactment of the Welsh
Government’s Major Incident Plan by giving immediate assistance and
technical guidance during the event and in the aftermath.
Primary efforts were focused upon ensuring
that the emergency services received the necessary technical
engineering support to enable them to safely tackle the incident
within the tunnel. Secondly, with no suitable alternative route to
the M4, sustained closure of the tunnel would have had huge
implications upon South Wales, both economically and politically.
Capita Symonds’ engineering expertise in assessing fire damage and
the structural integrity of the tunnel were therefore integral to
the post-incident recovery efforts.
In particular, the local fire and rescue
service was concerned about the live cabling still present within
the tunnel. Working with the emergency services, Capita Symonds’
electrical engineering experts ensured that all circuits were
isolated to allow the fire brigade to safely complete the operation
of bringing the fire under control.
In terms of getting the network moving again,
the first key point was to determine whether the fire had
compromised the unaffected tunnel. At the request of the incident
commander on site, Capita Symonds’ structural engineers made a
detailed inspection and assessment to determine the effect of the
fire on this part of the tunnel.
Following his recommendation of the continued
integrity of the tunnel bore, the process of implementing traffic
management to allow the M4 to operate in contra-flow was commenced.
Following the initial response, which made the tunnel safe enough
to allow incident response works to continue, while allowing the
network to reopen through contra-flow traffic in the eastbound
tunnel; the Capita Symonds team assessed the integrity of the
tunnel linings and provided a series of recommendations which would
enable the tunnel to be opened as expediently as possible.
Teams worked round the clock with contractors
and client to ensure these recommendations were actioned as swiftly
as possible (working to specific risk assessments). By Friday
morning the tunnel was ready for reopening. With no lighting
available within the tunnels, Capita Symonds’ Road Safety team had
to review the potential safety issues for users of the tunnel prior
to it being reopened, particularly reviewing the potential for
‘visual shock’ as users drove from the darkened tunnel interior
into bright sunlight.
Following this safety review, a 30mph speed
limit was recommended. Within 72 hours of this significant fire
incident, with associated damage to the fabric of the tunnel
linings, the tunnel bore was reopened – in a shorter time frame
than initially envisaged, and in no small part due to the
dedication, flexibility and expertise of the teams from Capita
Symonds.
“I would be grateful if you could pass my gratitude and that
of Welsh Government to all of you who have worked and continue to
work tirelessly to manage the Brynglas Tunnel fire incident and
also to plan and undertake the remedial works to restore Brynglas
Tunnels to its pre fire operating condition. It is recognised that
this collective effort was undertaken under both difficult
operating conditions and intense public and media interest but I am
pleased that we managed to maintain our objective of carrying out
the works in a manner which maintained the safety of both staff and
the public whilst restoring the network to operation as quickly as
possible.”
Richard Jones, Head of
SWTRA