Member Article

Progress made at New Wear Crossing ahead of winter schedule

The landscape along the River Wear is quickly changing shape as work on Sunderland’s new bridge progresses.

The south bank of the river at Pallion is a hive of activity, with demolition work now almost complete on the former Groves Cranes site, making way for more than 800 concrete piles that will support the approach to the bridge, which is set to open in 2018.

Elsewhere on the site, the construction team is busy building up the earthworks and foundations for the new Western Link approach road, which will connect the new bridge to European Way.

There are currently 180 people working on the project, from designing the scheme, to working on site and providing backroom support. This is made up of a mix of council staff, contractors and sub-contractors.

Councillor Paul Watson, Leader of Sunderland City Council, said: “The New Wear Crossing will open up huge new opportunities for regeneration, development and investment on the south side of the river. It’s great to see work progressing so well and these numbers show the scale of the preparation work that we need to do to link the new bridge to the new approach roads.”

The vertical concrete columns, known as piles, are now very visible from across the river. By the end of this year, once the piling work on the south bank is complete, there will be over 800 piles driven into the ground to form the bedrock of the new approach road.

The new bridge will cross the River Wear between Wessington Way in Castletown and European Way in Pallion.

It is the first bridge to be built over the Wear in the city for more than 40 years. It is part of the Sunderland Strategic Transport Corridor and will link the Port of Sunderland and city centre to the strategic highway network (A19/ A1), attracting new jobs and investment to Sunderland and helping to regenerate the area.

Stephen McCaffrey, Project Director for FVB JV, said: “Our team is working closely with Sunderland City Council and Port of Sunderland to make sure this preparation work goes smoothly. Demolition and piling work always present unexpected challenges, but we’re very pleased with how things are progressing so far.”

David Abdy, Project Director of the New Wear Crossing project for Sunderland City Council, said: “The project has moved forward a long way since we started the dismantling work at the beginning of the summer, but there is plenty more work for us to do before the new bridge is scheduled to open in the spring of 2018. The good news is that we are on track and moving forward well as we head towards the winter.”

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