A17 Embankment, Sleaford

Lincolnshire County Council recently commenced work on its £2.4M valued A17 Sleaford Bypass Embankment Repairs Scheme, part of which involves a complex section of slope stabilisation as the dual carriageway crosses over both the London and North Eastern Railway and East Midlands Trains’ Peterborough-Lincoln Line.

The scheme, which is being funded using part of the £5.4M allocated to the authority by the Department of Transport

(DfT) from its National Productivity Investment Fund to help reduce congestion at key locations and upgrade or improve the maintenance of local highway assets, was awarded to Eurovia Contracting, who are the civil engineering company and construction division of Vinci group company, Eurovia UK.

The scheme has involved a series of sheet piling which has seen the geotechnical subcontract awarded to Aarsleff Ground Engineering, who worked on the embankment opposite the A153 overbridge and the railway bridge to install 413 No. steel sheet piles using their Movax rig to form a retaining a wall.

“The local authority are not only replacing and repairing what is currently an outdated drainage system to ensure rainwater is properly channelled away from the bank to where it should be discharged”, explained one of Aarsleff’s Piling Foreman, Darren Robertson.

“They are also protecting the embankment from slippage over the coming years by not only using steel sheet piles, but by installing soil nails to stabilise the remainder of the embankment”.