Polycon Surface Water Drainage recently supplied bespoke access chambers to a major project in Widnes, Cheshire. Merseylink and Kier Construction completed work on the £600 million Mersey Gateway project in October 2017.

The Mersey Gateway is a multi-million pound transport scheme between Runcorn and Widnes in Cheshire, England. The main part of the project was the construction of the “Mersey Gateway” toll bridge spanning the River Mersey and the Manchester Ship Canal. The crossing, which has three traffic lanes in each direction, is located approximately 1.5 km to the east of the existing Silver Jubilee Bridge and opened in October 2017. The Mersey Gateway Bridge is aiming to ease congestion from the Silver Jubilee Bridge, crossing the river 1,500m to the east of the Silver Jubilee Bridge.

Polycon’s Managing Director, Ged Mason commented,

“Merseylink required a strong robust access chamber that was water proof and could be fitted in one piece. Being a slightly tricky job, other suppliers were unable to help. Polycon, known for providing bespoke solutions, stepped in to find a solution. The main obstacle was manufacturing a chamber that had a specific wall thickness due to the limited space. The specific wall thickness had to be strong enough for foot traffic, water tight and be able to withstand the weather elements, particularly the freeze and thaw process. The next obstacle would be to manufacture a water tight lid so it would fit perfectly into the stainless steel frame while retaining the ability to be taken out for maintenance. The chambers also had to have pre-manufactured ‘knock outs’ for the connecting pipe and these knockouts had to be specific sizes and in a specific place, with little room for error.”

Polycon’s Engineers immediately understood the brief and delivered a bespoke solution. For more information on How Polycon Surface Water Drainage can help with your project, visit out website www.polycon.co.uk or call our technical team on 0151 422 9747.