A1 River Tyne bridge, UK—design and construction Available to Purchase

The A1 trunk road between London and Edinburgh is one of the UK's primary roads. In March 2002, the Scottish Executive awarded a contract to Balfour Beatty Civil Engineering, with Scott Wilson as their designer, for construction of the 13·7 km long Haddington to Dunbar Expressway. A key aspect of this scheme was the design and construction of an elegant new 217 m long bridge over the River Tyne. The bridge crosses the River Tyne valley in a designated area of great landscape value. After consultation with bodies such as The Royal Fine Art Commission for Scotland, the Scottish Executive determined that the crossing be of a striking form, with three spans, a haunched deck and legs inclining 45° to the horizontal. The bridge is one of the largest and most complex structures procured by the Scottish Executive and presented significant design and construction challenges. The team opted for a post-tensioned concrete structure, constructed in situ, on one of the largest scaffolding projects ever undertaken in Scotland. This paper focuses on the design and construction challenge and the solution adopted during the project, which successfully delivered all of the objectives identified during the pre-contract consultation process.