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Ainscough Crane Hire’s Cambridge depot has celebrated its latest milestone achievement as part of its work for the A14 Integrated Delivery Team on Highways England’s Cambridge to Huntingdon Improvement scheme.
The scheme forms part of the government’s £15bn Road Investment Strategy and is an improvements project worth £1.5bn currently its third year of construction that will improve the A14 between Cambridge and Huntingdon, which is well known for congestion and delays.
Ainscough has worked on numerous elements of the project since it began in November 2016, and most recently undertook a landmark role at Section 3 of the project, which covers the area from Huntingdon to Godmanchester, lifting into place the last bridge beams in the sector.
The last of the 11 bridges in this sector, New Barns Lane Bridge, was fitted with the concrete spans over which a new carriageway will be built. The 25m beams were fabricated by Irish firm Shay Murtagh and were lifted into place by Ainscough’s 750t crane over two days.
Over the course of a further three days, a total of six beams, each weighing 65 tonnes were placed on the abutments of the bridge.
The structure is expected to be fully complete this summer, when it will provide agricultural access over the new A14 and provide a link between Conington and the westbound carriageway of the A1037 Huntingdon Road.
Pete Wallis, Ainscough’s depot manager for Cambridge said: “It’s been a great pleasure for our team to work with the A14 Integrated Delivery Team over recent years, and as the project nears its final stages it’s satisfying to see more and more elements of the project reach completion and come into use.
“That’s certainly the case with the recent work at Section 3 – it was a proud moment to lift the final beams into place and we look forward to seeing the road be used by motorists later this year.”
The A14 Cambridge to Huntingdon improvement scheme is being delivered on behalf of Highways England by a joint venture between Costain, Skanska, Balfour Beatty and designers Atkins-Jacobs. The new road is expected to open to traffic in December 2020.
