9 March 2010
Bell Common Refurbishment Complete - March 2010
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The M25 Bell Common Tunnel has officially returned to
full operation after a £93m refurbishment.
Following the success of the M25 Holmesdale Tunnel
Refurbishment, a multidisciplinary Capita Symonds team was
appointed as Costain’s designer for the Highways Agency Early
Contractor Involvement scheme in 2008.
Unveiling a commemorative plaque, the Under Secretary of State
for Transport, Chris Mole MP, congratulated the whole team on
opening two months early, under budget, and with an excellent
safety record.
Originally opened in 1984 as part of the M25 North Orbital
Motorway, the Tunnel is approximately 500 metres long and located
in a semi rural location in Epping Forest with a cricket pitch on
the roof.
The scheme included the removal of raised walkways to meet
disability access requirements, improve access for emergency
services and the facilitating of carriageway widening works.
The ventilation was also brought up to current European standards
by the construction of a Saccardo nozzle fan system located at the
tunnel portals to control pollution and smoke in the event of a
fire.
The tunnel has a dimmable lighting system to reduce energy
consumption while other works included installation of passive fire
protection and provision of an Automatic Video Incident Detection
system.
A Capita Symonds design team undertook all the design work,
working closely with Costain and a number of key suppliers.
There were a number of environmental issues concerning ecological
management in the adjacent Epping Forest which have been solved
thanks to extensive liaison with the Corporation of London.
Interesting facts
- Capita Symonds has spent approximately 75,000 hours to date
delivering the project.
- The project has consumed 1.65 million hours of site work.
- An estimated 86 million vehicles passed through the site during
the works and were subject to 400 different lane closures.
- The tunnel was modelled in 3-D to allow clash detection of the
93 kilometres of cables and pipes routed in and around the
tunnel.
Read more about the project in
our case study