550,000 Tonnes all in a Day's Work
A groundbreaking £32 million conntract is underway to ease the flow of traffic along one of the busiest stretches of the M1, which takes drivers in and out of London.
More than 15 kilometres of motorway, from junctions 6a to 10, is being widened along with newly constructed interchanges to modernise the motorway and cope with the huge number of motorists using the road every day.
Tarmac National Contracting secured the work to lay 550,000 tonnes of asphalt for principal contractors Balfour Beatty and Skanska in early 2006. The project is due to finish at the end of 2008.
“As part of the Aggregate Products group, National Contracting is a key customer for the materials AP supplies. For this project more than 300,000 tonnes will be supplied internally,” said senior contracts manager, David Boswell.
The project falls under the Anglia & South East area of National Contracting which covers London, East Anglia and the Home Counties with an annual turnover of more than £50 million.
The National Contracting team has laid 70,000 tonnes of asphalt so far. The team is working long hours and even bunking up in caravans to ensure the project is finished on time. “Each member of the gang has been with Tarmac for more than 15 years, working together for most of that time so there’s a good atmosphere on site,” said David.
And it was good relationships that won the contract. David added: “We’re now working as part of a bigger Balfour Beatty and Skanska team – a relationship that has developed over time. A previous project with Balfour Beatty, widening junctions 12 to 15 of the M25, ran smoothly and led to to an early Contractor Involvement (ECI) for this contract, which is a nice way to secure work."
With involvement from other corners of Tarmac the connections dont end there. While Tarmac's Hayes asphalt plant in London is the key supplier of the asphalt for the project, Tarmac Precast is providing 192 precast bridge beams. These will replace 13 bridges that are now not wide enough to accommodate the extra motorway lane. The beams are being produced at the Tallington factory in Lincolnshire for a sub-contract worth £665,000.
Balfour Beatty and Skanska awarded a second subcontract to National Road Planing (NRP), acquired by Tarmac last year. NRP is planing out the existing hard shoulders and slip roads as well as profile planing prior to overlay. All planings are being recycled for reuse on the contract. Surfacing agent Dave Mather said: “The project is a massive recycling scheme. National Road Planing was a good acquisition for Tarmac as recycling is the way forward.” National Contracting director Paul Fleetham said: “The team on the M1 widening proved their capabilities with the success of the previous M25 widening. The M25 was highly acclaimed not only by our client, Balfour Beatty, but also the Highways Agency. When the M1 widening came out to tender our Anglia & South East team was the obvious choice for both Balfour and the HA.” With all the pieces falling into place for Tarmac, the way forward seems to be even bigger contracts.
18th May 2007
