Highways England | Unity Partnership Oldham Council
Duration
9 Month Highways England Secondment, 10 Month Unity Partnership Secondment
Challenge
Our LBR Associate engineers were working within secondment roles within Local and National Authorities, Unity Partnership (Oldham Council) and Highways England (HE), representing the client organisation’s interests in asset maintenance of their bridge stock.
Our engineer was responsible for organising the Principal Inspections of OMBC’s structures portfolio which includes approx.250 No. bridges, footbridges & culverts and 1150 No. retaining walls in the Greater Manchester area.
Our HE secondment engineer was responsible for organising multiple structures surveys for bridge improvement schemes including concrete repair and anti-suicide parapet upgrade schemes. The required surveys included, post-tension special inspections (PTSI), topographical surveys, concrete condition and coring surveys, VRS Compliance Surveys, stringcourse concrete surveys, trial pits and asbestos surveys.
To deliver these surveys our engineers were tasked with programming, organising and managing multiple 3rd parties including the Principal Contractor (PC), Traffic management (TM), road space teams and multiple subcontractors at various site locations across the northwest of England. The inspections were undertaken during a national lockdown during the Covid-19 pandemic which presented a unique set of challenges with maintaining social distancing to minimise the risk of contamination.
In addition to the surveys, our engineer at HE was also tasked with advising resurfacing, VRS/parapet upgrade and improvements schemes on the best course of action for their schemes in relation to the bridge structure.
Solution
To deliver these multi-faceted inspections, our engineers developed a resource loaded programme for the inspection work to identify which subcontractors were required at each site location and the nature of the work to ensure the correct TM was provided (i.e number of Mobile Elevated Working Platforms (MEWPs) on site, correct TM and work space given to undertake the works safely). Liaison with each 3rd party was required to set dates for the inspections and book the required road space and TM.
Prior to any site visits, our engineers ensured all subcontractors with specialist skills such as rope access inspection specialists and MEWP operators were able to demonstrate the appropriate competency level and were signed off by the PC.
Further to the health and safety challenges which are usually involved with structural inspections and surveys, our engineers also had the additional challenge of working within the government guidance on Covid-19. This required separate welfare units to be organised for subcontractors and teams to work in isolation from each other as much as possible to prevent cross-contamination and the risk of spreading the virus.
Our engineer at HE worked with scheme leaders to help develop their schemes by giving recommendations on issues such as:
Best course of action for resurfacing over bridges, in particular, recommendations on the replacement or retention of expansion joints.
Requirements for VRS upgrade schemes at bridges including whether a pier impact assessment is required for the scheme.
Structural advice on the replacement of parapets as part of VRS upgrade schemes.
Design advice on the construction of a security fencing at abutments to prevent unwanted packages from being placed on the bearing shelf.
Our engineer was also responsible for the development of a Structures Alert Form (SAF) which supplemented inter-departmental communication of schemes, specifically around issues where schemes were impacting structures. This facilitated discussions around where schemes could possibly collaborate on upgrades, sharing traffic management and structural upgrade costs. This promoted budgetary efficiency around schemes and would improve safety for the road user and benefitted the taxpayer.
Given Oldham Council’s limited resources and understanding the importance of identifying high risk structures, our engineer undertook Risk Based Principal Inspection Interval Assessments to identify which structures required more regular inspection and potential intervention to bring up to the desired condition.
The Results
The LBR engineer on placement with Unity Partnership was able to successfully manage 35 Principal Inspections and undertake 100 General Inspections within the financial year without injury or incident and was able to deliver all reports to the client on time and on budget. The engineer also provided a platform for Oldham Council’s limited resources to be focused on the structures stock in need of more regular inspection and interventions.
The LBR engineer on secondment with HE not only delivered the structural inspections without incident but also helped develop the HE’s Structures Team’s process for interdisciplinary collaboration. His work also helped undertake 218 Preliminary Risk Review’s of the post-tensioned bridge structure stock in the North West, 80 of which were done by the engineer.
Figure 1 - Timber footbridge in Greenfield, Oldham
LBR Associates Ltd is a start-up company comprising chartered civil engineers with over 10 years professional experience in civil and structural engineering.
The following case study demonstrates our staff’s asset management capability working with a Client to improve their asset management systems.
This scheme was delivered by another organisation and was not directly associated with LBR Associates Ltd.