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CHALLENGE FUND FOOTWAY SCHEME
Date: January - March 2021
Client: Coventry City Council
Value: £490,000
Form of contract: NEC 3 Term Service Contract (April 2013)
Brief Description of Works
The works included the complete refurbishment of 7500m² of existing footpaths on the following six suburban roads
William Bristow Road
Belgrave Road
Avon Street
Longfellow Street
Winsford Avenue
Wallace Road
The existing pavements were either of tarmac or slabbed construction and sometimes a combination of both. The footpaths are in a residential setting complete with driveways and/or parking bays. The works involved excavating the existing pavements and disposing of all arisings off site in local licensed tipping facilities. The replacement construction was designed to accommodate variations in levels and intended to provide sufficient structural integrity to support light vehicles. Coventry CC therefore specified a flexible pavement of two layers of asphalt: 70mm thickness of AC20 dense binder course and 20mm thickness of AC6 dense surface course. In addition, Type 1 granular sub base was laid where required to mitigate soft spots and also to regulate any uneven sub formation.
The works also included the installation of dropped crossings for householders where required in order to facilitate access to driveways.
On certain schemes, pre cast concrete edgings were laid to separate the new flexible surfacing construction from vehicle parking bays which were formed using a buff coloured self-setting gravel surface course. This pavement design successfully created an attractive street scene on these relatively wide footways.
Contract/Client Relationships
McVeigh Construction is an existing partner with Coventry CC on a Civil Engineering Support Framework Contract (2016-2021) and has previously delivered services to the council. This high profile scheme was successfully completed as part of the Council’s mission to improve footways across the city and was promoted as part of the upcoming 2021 Coventry UK City of Culture initiative.
McVeigh Construction was proud to be a partner in this endeavour and used the Company’s well regarded reputation to good effect.
Constraints and Challenges
The location of the sites within a busy city’s suburban environment complete with bus and HGV routes provided unique challenges. These included managing traffic flows past the works areas often during off peak hours as well as managing pedestrian traffic. The Company supply chain provided the sites with reliable and safe traffic management which successfully took account of incoming side roads, shop service roads and other public accesses.
In addition it was imperative to maintain safe and secure access to all householders/stakeholders along the roads at all times utilising well defined barriered routes during the construction operation.
The work activities were planned in such a way as to minimise any disruption. This became especially critical between the excavation operation and the installation of the new pavements when temporary works became crucial to maintaining safe passage for pedestrians and light vehicles. Hence, close liaison with householders/stakeholders via letter drops and personal calls were carried out. McVeigh Construction recorded zero complaints throughout the whole construction process much to the credit of the work teams and site staff. It is particularly noteworthy that all of the works were successfully delivered during the COVID 19 pandemic when social distancing introduced yet another challenge to be managed.
