Whitemountain in partnership with Somerset County Council and AECOM have been awarded the prestigious 2020 South West CIHT Transport Innovation Award. In addition, the 'Squibbers Way' project received a “Highly Commended” award in the Transportation Project of the Year category. The team were presented with their award at a ceremony, held last night in the Great Hall at the University of Exeter.
We would like to extend a massive congratulations to all of the team who were involved in delivering the £18.4m Colley Lane Southern Access Road Project, 'Squibbers Way'. This was a complex and challenging Civil Engineering project, including two bridges and a new carriageway which was constructed to ease traffic congestion in Bridgwater, Somerset.

Whitemountain was delighted to receive the following letter of thanks from Hereford & Gloucestershire Canal Trust.

On behalf of our Board of Trustees I would like to thank Whitemountain, and in particular your Senior Construction Manager David Harrison for his help and the assistance that he afforded to us during the Colley Lane project in Bridgewater, for enabling the Trust to be able to salvage of the original canal swing bridge for reuse on the Herefordshire and Gloucestershire Canal.

We intend to refurbish the bridge and to install it as part of a future phase of our Malswick project, specifically for pedestrian and farm access over the restored canal, which is Jocated just south of Newent in Gloucestershire.

Due to a delay in our project we were pleased that the bridge could continue to be used for the duration of your contract, and are extremely grateful to David for the help that he then gave to enable it to be

transported to Gloucestershire. 

Yours Sincerely 

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K Vaughan Welch, Chairman

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Bridgwater’s Squibbers Way is now open following a spectacular squibbing display. The 18 month project in Colley Lane, Somerset was designed to help ease congestion along Taunton Road and Broadway by providing an alternative route from the M5 for lorries serving the Colley Lane estate. The Whitemountain team have enjoyed delivering this intricate, complex and challenging Civil Engineering project. Our project delivery team have been embraced by the local community and supported by local businesses. We have worked with and fundraised for many local charities such as The Brainwave Centre and Bridgwater Foodbank. We would like to take this opportunity to thank the team at Somerset County Council and the town of Bridgwater for welcoming our team to the community. Check out the live footage from the opening event https://lnkd.in/gc4yAT6

A small ceremony will take place on Monday 16th December to mark the opening of Squibber's Way. The event will commence at 6 pm on the Crossways Bridge and will include a mini squibbing display before Bridgwater Carnival’s Guy Fawkes cart becomes the first vehicle to cross the bridge, followed by illuminated cyclists from The Bridgwater Way. Members of the public are welcome to attend. Please note there are no facilities provided, however, the Canalside coffee bar is open to the public.

An event to celebrate the opening of Bridgwater’s new Squibbers Way has been rescheduled to avoid clashing with the General Election.

Somerset County Council is working with main contractor Whitemountain and Bridgwater Carnival to organise a spectacular mini squibbing display to mark the opening of the new link road.

This was due to take place on Wednesday 11 December – however, it will now be rearranged for the evening of Monday 16 December, after the election.

The new date is to ensure Somerset County Council complies with the laws and guidance that restrict local authority publicity and consultation in the run-up to elections.

Further details about the road opening will be publicised in due course.

Squibbers Way is the new £18.4m road linking Marsh Lane to Parrett Way and was named by the people of Bridgwater following a public vote. The project was previously referred to as the Colley Lane Southern Access Road and will help ease congestion along Taunton Road and Broadway as well as opening up brownfield land for development.

A Sparkling event is being planned to celebrate the opening of Bridgwater’s new Squibbers Way in early December.

Squibbers Way is the new £18.4m road linking Marsh Lane to Parrett Way and was named by the people of Bridgwater following a public vote.

The project was previously referred to as the Colley Lane Southern Access Road and will help ease congestion along Taunton Road and Broadway as well as opening up brownfield land for development.

Somerset County Council is working with Bridgwater Carnival and main contractor Whitemountain to organise a spectacular mini-squibbing display to celebrate completion which will take place after Carnival season on Wednesday, December 11.

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Whitemountain is also pleased to continue to sponsor this years children's parade at the Bridgwater carnival. 

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Read the full article https://www.somersetlive.co.uk/news/somerset-news/new-somerset-road-opened-fantastic-3401358

On Friday 27th September staff working at our Colley Lane site took part in the worlds biggest coffee morning in aid of Macmillan Cancer Support and raised an incredible  £175.50. This was one of 7 events held at Whitemountain Offices, with the overall total raised exceeding £800.
 

Bridgwater’s bright sparks have now chosen a name for the town’s new link road – Squibbers Way.

Somerset County Council asked the people of Bridgwater to help find a permanent name for the Colley Lane Southern Access Road (CLSAR).

This attracted more than 250 unique nominations which were whittled down to a shortlist of six and put to the public to choose the winner.

In total 2,728 people cast their vote and the final results can be revealed as...

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• Brickyard Way – 471 votes (17%)

• Brunel View Road – 296 votes (11%)

• Colthurst Road – 142 votes (5%)

• Pantile Way – 125 votes (5%)

• Priverno Way – 78 votes (3%)

• Squibbers Way – 1,616 votes (59%)

Councillor John Woodman, Somerset County Council’s Cabinet Member for Highways, said: “This new road will make such a difference for local people so it’s only right they should have the final say in choosing its name.

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“Thank you to everyone who suggested a name or took the trouble to vote. Many bright ideas were put forward but Carnival is so important to the town that Squibbers Way was always likely to be a strong favourite.

“I think it’s an excellent choice and very much look forward to opening Squibbers Way later this year.”

Squibbers Way is being built by contractors Whitemountain and will open in the autumn to provide a much-needed link between Marsh Lane and Parrett Way, easing congestion along Taunton Road and Broadway as well as opening up brownfield land for development.

The road includes two new bridges – the Crossways Bridge over the Bridgwater & Taunton Canal and the Somerset Bridge over the River Parrett which at 52 metres long is the longest single span bridge in Somerset.

A new £18.4 million road in Bridgwater is nearly completed - but now needs a name.

Construction of the Colley Lane Southern Access Road will be completed this autumn and will provide access to the Colley Lane Industrial Estate and become an essential link road between Marsh Lane and Parrett Way. The following names have been shortlisted, choose your favourite:

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Brickyard Way; Brunel View Road; Colthurst Road; Pantile Way; Priverno Way; Squibbers Way

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Visit https://somersetnewsroom.com/2019/08/02/clsarvote/ to vote. 

Aerial photos show the fantastic progress at Colley Lane Southern Access Road in Bridgwater, Somerset. Embankment construction is progressing well to the Crossways Canal bridge. It won’t be long until Bridgwater has another bridge open to divert HGV traffic away from the busy town centre

#bridgwater #loveconstruction

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Whitemountain’s Colley Lane site in Somerset has received a certificate of Excellence in its recent audit with “Considerate Constructors Scheme” (CCS)

Staff demonstrated a well-planned Programme, excellence in communication with stakeholders; and commitment to the local environment through fundraising and volunteering within the Community. The Project Team impressed the auditor by showing excellent application of vehicle control, movements and deliveries

The Project Manager was praised for his commitment to further promote the CCS approach to work placements and school visits and identified presentations to the Institute of Civil Engineers as a major achievement to share knowledge and promote the achievements of the site team.

Reduction to Carbon emissions, environmental protection works, training of staff and health and wellbeing initiatives also assisted in reaching a certificate of excellence. 

Structural concrete has been poured on the Crossways Bridge to create the deck using a 42m pump. Once set, abutment reinforced concrete stitch beams were constructed with an additional 70m3 of concrete. This was then completed with stringcourse parapets in preparation for the next phase of the works.

The Whitemountain Street Lighting team have completed Phase 1 of the installation of LED Street lamps on the Colley Lane Southern Access Route. 

The Phase 1 milestone completion of providing access to the Old Basin from the North Side Colley Lane Industrial Estate was achieved in early April.

Staff working at our site have taken part in a 15,000 FT tandem sky dive and raised over £2700 for Brainwave. Brainwave is a charity that exists to help children with disabilities and additional needs to achieve greater mobility, communication skills and learning potential through a range of educational and physical therapies. #charity #brainwave #skydive

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Another significant milestone has been met on the Colley Lane Southern Access Road with the completion of the Somerset Bridge deck waterproofing, despite the best efforts of Storm Gareth

Anel Seidakhmetova, Civil Engineering student working on the Colley Lane site enjoys dancing in her spare time.  At the weekend Anel and her dancing partner, Julian represented The University of the West of England in the Southern UK Universities Ballroom & Latin Dancing competition. The couple were successful in being placed first in the competition. Many Congratulations Anel, your commitment and hard work has paid off.

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Whitemountain were pleased to accept an invitation from the Institute of Civil Engineers (South West Branch) to provide a Technical Presentation at the Creative Innovation Centre in Taunton earlier this week.

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Whitemountains' David Harrison (Senior Construction Manager) and Adam Marshall (Graduate Engineer) provided a very informative session covering the many technical aspects and challenges which the scheme presented. Details on deep foundations, piling works, poor ground conditions, polystyrene lightweight embankments, bridge construction, temporary works, remediation, ground stabilisation, drainage, utilities, pavement construction, ecology and communication engagement were shared with a high number of guests, which concluded with a good Q&A session at the end.

Penrose School, Somerset is a small primary school which caters for children with special educational needs and disabilities aged between 4 and 11 years old. The school offers pupils in their early years an excellent foundation for learning and Whitemountain were impressed by their multi-sensory approach to development.

Penrose School was one of three schools chosen to receive funding from the Whitemountain team who raised money by various charity initiatives in their offices. 

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Leigh Ann van Aswegen (pictured left), Site Administrator at our Colley Lane Site is pictured presenting the cheque of £135. 

Time:    Tuesday 5th March 6pm for 6.30pm

Venue:  Creative Innovation Centre CIC, Memorial Hall, Paul Street, Taunton, Somerset, TA1 3PF

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This presentation will provide an insight into the work carried out by Whitemountain on the £18 million pound Colley Lane Southern Access Road project in Bridgwater, Somerset which includes two new bridges, 840 metres of carriageway, new cycle and footpaths.

Whitemountain Presenters:

David Harrison, Senior Construction Manager

Adam  Marshall – Project Civil Engineer

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For further information contact:

Barbara Sweet

t:  01752 766230

e: barbara.sweet@ice.org.uk

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Jonathan Carroll, Head of HR at Whitemountain facilitated a HR Essential Skills workshop with the management team on our Colley Lane Project to build manager’s confidence and competence in adhering to the Company’s HR policies, practices and processes.

"We thank you for supporting the Bridgwater Foodbank. Whitemountain staff have all been very generous to us and we really appreciate it. During the three months before Christmas 2018 we fed 1,100 people at our Foodbank assisted by your donation of 268.41 Kg of food. We were also very grateful for your generous donation of good quality clothing, which we also distributed at this time. Thank you for your initiative, we look forward to driving over your New Bridge in due course !  Many thanks and best wishes from us all at the Foodbank"  Keith Barnard

Alan Donaghy Whitemountain’s Technical Manager for Concrete visited the Colley Lane site on Tuesday 29th January to give employees further insight into concrete specifications, production methods, British & European Standards, mix designs, cement types and testing.

Whitemountain are delighted to have reached another key milestone with the installation of the Crossways Bridge Beams.  The Crossways Bridge is an essential element of the new Colley Lane Southern Access Road.  The placement of the beams is a culmination of months of hard work and planning by the Whitemountain site team.  Whitemountain have built a close relationship with the Canal and Rivers Trust and will continue to work in conjunction with Canal and Rivers Trust and our Client Somerset County Council in the delivery of this landmark project.

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Visitors to site included Breedon’s Group Chief Executive Pat Ward and Councillor John Woodman, Somerset County Council’s Cabinet Member for Highways. (Left) also visiting the site was Rob Wood, Breedon Group Finance Director.

Whitemountain staff at our site in Bridgwater recently hosted Undergraduate students from the Science and Engineering Department from University West of England - Bristol International College. 

Current placement students Anel Seidakhmetova and Conall Johnson from the BEng Civil and Environmental Engineering UWE are carrying out their placement year with Whitemountain.

They both took the time to share their learning experience of working on the Colley Lane Southern Access Road project, to give the visitors an insight into Civil Engineering and the construction methods being adopted to complete a complex highway infrastructure contract.

A section of Marsh Lane Road between the adjacent swing bridges at Canalside Building & the Boat and Anchor Pub  is scheduled for temporary closure from 28th January until September.

The temporary closure is essential to enable the road construction of the approach roads to the new Crossways Bridge over the canal and Canal Towpath improvement works.

Access to residents and businesses north of the canal will still be available via the existing swing bridge. Access to the Boat and Anchor will now be via Huntworth as per the signed diversion route.

We apologise for any inconvenience encountered as a result of the diversion and thank you in advance for your co-operation.

Works are progressing well on the Crossways Canal Bridge. Good progress has been made to the North and South abutment walls with delivery of the concrete beams scheduled later this month.

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Whitemountain have collected for the Trussell Trust Food Bank at three sites across the Business, Colley Lane in Somerset, Temple Quarry and Head Office in Mallusk. We have had an excellent response to our appeal and are delighted that our efforts will help people in our local area who face crisis this Christmas.

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Road surfacing has commenced on site including the link road to the Colley Lane Industrial Estate and the much anticipated access roads for local residents. 

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Whitemountain were pleased to host a site visit at Colley Lane this afternoon for the Client Team, where progress on the scheme is on schedule.

Attendees included

Paula Hewitt - Lead Director for Economic and Community Infrastructure & Director of Commissioning

Jon Woodman - Cabinet Member for Highways and Transport

Greg Brock – NEC Project Manager

Ala Al-Diwani – NEC Supervisor

Richard Gorst – SCC Project Manager

Richard Needs – Principal Designer

John Hasson - Whitemountain

The concrete pour for the main deck of the Somerset River Bridge was completed in late November, one week ahead of schedule.

The reinforced concrete bridge deck with length of 52m and width 15m entailed fixing  80 tonnes of reinforcement steel and placing 210 cu metres of concrete using two lorry mounted concrete pump long deck.

Whitemountain were pleased to deliver and host a “Technical Presentation”  for South Western Area Bridge Committee followed by a site visit at CLSAR which is made up with members from local authority councils including Somerset, Devon, Cornwall, Wiltshire, Dorset and Gloucestershire.

Attendees viewed the many aspects which this schemes includes; Rotary bored piling, CFA piling, Sheet Piling, Load Transfer Platforms, Reinforced Concrete Works, Bridge Construction, Polystyrene embankment construction over existing poor ground.

Following Whitemountain’s successful landing of the steel bridge structure at Colley Lane Southern Access Road, works continue in preparation for the pouring of the Somerset bridge deck later this month. Permanent GRP formwork is now in place across the extents of the deck and the tying of the steel reinforcement is progressing well.

Leigh Ann van Aswegen, Site Administrator at Colley Lane was one of one hundred and fifty ‘squibbers’ at the Bridgwater Carnival. Squibbing is unique to Bridgwater Carnival and is by definition the simultaneous firing of lots of large fireworks (‘squibs’) held on a pole above the head, facing skyward. Squibbing dates from the 1600’s.

Leigh Ann was honoured to be of part this unique spectacular and Whitemountain was delighted to have supported the Children’s Carnival at this magnificent community event.

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Since mobilisation began in April, we have worked diligently as a team to accomplish key milestones in advance of today’s bridge installation. Today’s works are a result of months of meticulous planning, overcoming many technical and logistical challenges and over 45,000 work hours by our project team to ensure successful delivery. We are very pleased to be delivering such a prestigious project for Somerset County Council and for the important benefits it will bring to the Bridgwater community.

Whitemountain are delighted to play their part in this year's Bridgwater Carnival by sponsoring the Children's Parade. Gareth McNern, Project Manager at Colley Lane Southern Access Road, and LeighAnn Van Aswegen, Site Administrator visited the Carnival Centre to present the sponsorship Cheque to Chris Hocking,  Publicity & Commercial Director of the Bridgwater Carnival.

On Friday the 19th of October, Colley Lane staff wore pink to raise money for Breast Cancer Research. The team raised an incredible £176.22.

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Pictured wearing pink is Anel Seidakhmetova , Civil Engineering Placement Student and LeighAnn van Aswegen, Site Administrator.

Poor ground conditions on a section of the Colley Lane site meant that innovative solutions were sought to overcome the ground condition.

Conventionally quarry products would be used for constructing embankments, however the project designers selected lightweight, high density Polystyrene Blocks to create 300m of the road embankment between the Somerset and Crossways Bridges. The adoption of a low ground bearing pressure solution was the preferred solution after a detailed consideration of several options.

This method of construction will prevent additional loading on the existing ground and also reduce the number of vehicular movements to site by 90% which means nearly 500 truck deliveries less to and from site.

Congratulations to Conall Johnson, Civil Engineering Placement Student at Colley Lane who recently ran his first Half Marathon in the Welsh capital city of Cardiff. Conall was one of 15,000 runners who took part in the annual run which takes in incredible landmarks such as Cardiff Castle, the modern waterfront of Cardiff Bay and the greenery of Bute Park.

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The beams are the first 2 of 9 paired girders have been delivered to site.  These will be connected and lifted into position to form the new 52.5m span Somerset Bridge across the River Parrett. These sections were manufactured by Cleveland Bridge UK and escorted to site from fabrication facilities in Darlington.

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On Saturday 29th September, David Harrison (Construction Manager), LeighAnn Aswegen (Office Administrator) and her family took part in Rage against the Rubbish at Bridgwater Canal. The Rage against the Rubbish collection team and Volunteers, attend a monthly litter picking session along the Bridgwater Taunton canal, from the YMCA in Bridgwater, up to the Canal swing bridge, on the Colley Lane Southern Access Road site.

The YMCA provide kayaks and canoes, so that litter picking can be completed from within the canal, as well as along the tow path. The Inland Waterways Association, West Country Branch Volunteers also assist by supplying a flat work boat with on-board rubbish storage containers.  All rubbish collected is sorted and recycled.  1,220 plastic bottles, 1,085 drinks cans and 240 glass bottles were collected in total.

On Friday 28th September, Whitemountain joined the world’s biggest coffee morning in aid of Macmillan Cancer and raised over £800 at their 7 events. Colley Lane staff raised over £300 of the total money collected. The coffee morning was an excellent way of raising funds to make sure no one has to face their Cancer diagnosis alone, and that all families affected by Cancer are given both financial support and the care and counselling that they need to help them through a very difficult time.

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