Scotland

Scotland taking Stepps to connect its roads

A80 Bridge beams Transport Scotland, an agency of the Scottish government, has been handed the responsibility of delivering an upgrade of the A80 Glasgow to Stirling Trunk Road between Stepps and Haggs to motorway standard.

The DBFO contract is between the Scottish ministers and the appointed consortium, HMC (Highway Management Construction), which is a joint venture between John Graham Ltd, Farrans Ltd, and Bilfinger Berger AG civil. The company has employed BEAR to take on the operation and maintenance; the project is currently being site managed by Jacobs Engineering.

The upgrade will see approximately 8km of new motorway through green field sites, and 10km of upgrade work on the existing A80. The Stepps and Haggs route will connect via the Auchenkilns grade separated junction, an existing section of road that was built prior to the new contract and opened in 2006. The junction was designed under a separate design and build contract and has served to mitigate the traffic disruption caused by the current work.   Isis Total Cleaning Solutions are pleased to be involved with the M80 upgrade project, cleaning all the offices, houses, portacabins and welfare cabins for the workers on site.A80 Bridge beams

The M80 contract is valued at approximately £320 million, which includes a 30 year road maintenance plan.

Progress so far

Development of the A80 road upgrades has made significant progress in the past three months with a spokesperson from Transport Scotland stating, “The scheme is progressing well and works are on target to be completed on time.” The Hornshill Junction (Stepps) to Mollinsburn was completed in November 2010. Following suit with regards to completion are:  the new Hornshill Junction over-bridge, Lindsaybeg road over-bridge, the Auchengeich road over-bridge, the Mollinsburn to Gartferry link road over-bridge and the North road over-bridge to name a few. All were completed in the second half of 2010, meeting their assessed schedules, and are now open to traffic.A80 Bridge beams

Still in progress is the Mollinsburn Interchange, the Dullatar road under-bridge, Forest Road under-bridge and Kilsyth road under-bridge. They are due to be completed this month and open to traffic shortly after. Overall, work is being approached in phases, offline and online, which are being completed simultaneously. An existing section of the A80 must be de-trunked once the offline phase is complete.

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