WEC Group are delighted to have fabricated the first stainless steel road bridge in the UK, for the historic village of Pooley Bridge in the Lake District.
WEC Group have completed a contract to replace a crucial bridge in the Lake District in the village of Pooley Bridge.
The bridge, which dates back to 1764, collapsed on 6th December 2015 after Cumbria was hit by heavy flooding as a result of Storm Desmond. The bridge serves as an important transport link over the River Eamont at the northern end of Lake Ullswater.
As a leader in bespoke metal fabrication, we have been involved in numerous high profile projects, including the design, manufacture and installation of Mead’s Reach Bridge at Temple Quay in Bristol which weighed in at 70 tonnes and 60m long as part of a £200 million pound regeneration project for the Temple Quay area.
Working in partnership with Knight Architects and Eric Wright Civil Engineering, Cumbria County Council have invested £5 million pounds into the new Stainless Steel Pooley Bridge, which will be the first road bridge of its kind in the UK. The structure is an open-spandrel arch bridge design with a 40m span and will be crafted from 110 tonnes of Duplex 2205 stainless steel as well as concrete. Once completed, it will be used for pedestrian and single lane motor traffic to cross the river Eamont.
The iconic structure was fabricated at the Darwen Based WEC Fabrication site in 4 sections taking approximately 22,000 man hours to complete, with part of the process to create a jig to mount the sections, allowing work to be completed simultaneously throughout different areas of the structure.
Deliveries to the Cumbrian site took place in January and February however work had had to be delayed in March due to the Covid-19 pandemic. Once all safety measures had been put into place, the bridge was then assembled onsite using a temporary support structure and required a 1,200 tonne crane, one of the largest in the UK, to lift the assembled bridge structure into place. The bridge is due to open later this year once completed.
To view photos of this iconic bridge being manufactured and installed, please visit our Flickr page
For all your fabrication enquiries, please contact us on:
T: 01254 773718
E: welding@wecl.co.uk
