paving access 4

The movement of abnormal loads along Britain’s highways can at times be a challenge, traffic density is high and street furniture designed to calm speed can be impassable to wide loads, it calls for some very careful and precise planning.

One of the heaviest loads to travel on Britain’s roads faced such a problem with all 270 tonnes of an electricity sub-station Quad Booster needing to be transported to site. With motorway bridges unable to accept the vehicle a route was planned that saw the load shipped by barge to within 5 miles of the site. The shipping route via the River Ribble was the first large upstream shipment on this navigable river since 1991 and had to operate within the exceptionally high tide levels provided by a “Super Moon” period within the lunar calendar.

Three years of planning went into the trip that saw the vehicle’s arrival on site via a newly constructed road featuring Grasscrete GC2 reinforced with A393 (10mm diameter ) mesh reinforcement. In spite of the overall size of the vehicle the number of axles meant that the net point load still fell within the capability of the system.

Functionality was very much the specification brief and with this in mind the traditional pocket fill medium of soil and grass was superseded by a gravel material for a self draining low maintenance solution.