New Mersey Gateway Bridge Opens as Our Site Plant Closes

On Saturday 14th October the £600m Mersey Gateway Toll Bridge opened just as the second of the two site Plants was taken down and moved off for its involvement in the next major project CEMEX secures, in helping to build a Greater Britain.

Over the past two and half years we have supplied over 156,000m3 from the two site Plants, with over 9,000 separate pours supplied, with a large proportion of out of hours working. Within this we have completed 22 choreographed pours of over 1,100m3 each for the main river approaches on both banks, referenced as MSS pours, using a Movable Scaffold System (MSS) for some very complex and precise pours, with technically demanding mixes.

Paul Cheeseman, CEMEX Operations Manager, commented: “I am very proud of all the team involved in making this project a success. Our small operational team has had to endure long hours, frequently at short notice; had to overcome a variety of challenges, the biggest probably being a site power failure part way through a 1,200m3 pour at 7pm at night, which saw our contingency planning kick in without any noticeable effect to the client.

"We have been well supported locally by our Technical Department, who have also endured challenges, with the client looking for a tolerance window of 10mm either way on consistency on all the deck pours and MSS pours – this was on top of a project where every load supplied was tested by the client for consistency.

"Our aggregates, cements and admixture colleagues have served us well and managed any issues with good communication through to resolution. All of the pours were placed with Preston Brook Planning office, with the Planning team also meeting the daily challenges the project threw at us and their support and assistance was greatly appreciated.

"Having now taken time to step back and view the completed structure, it is testament to our ability as a business that we have had a successful involvement in such a complex engineering feat.”