DESIGN work on a new Forth road bridge has moved out into the Forth estuary itself this month with the appointment of a marine investigations contractor.
Glover Site Investigations Ltd has been handed a £2.1 million contract to carry out marine investigations in the estuary over a ten-week period starting this week.
Marine investigation teams will execute the works along the line of the proposed
new bridge crossing to develop a detailed picture of ground conditions beneath the sea bed and shoreline in key locations.
Working from two barges, a team of up to 25 specialists will drill ten boreholes around the proposed base of the southern tower and approach piers, six in the vicinity of Beamer Rock – the proposed site of the central tower – and seven at the northern tower and approach piers.
The investigations will provide information about geology beneath the seabed, and will inform decisions about the location and type of bridge foundations to be used in the crossing.
Lawrence Shackman, Transport Scotland's project manager, said: "A significant amount of work is taking place at the moment in the vicinity of the crossing to glean vital inform-ation which will feed into the design of the bridge and its approach roads."
The full article contains 217 words and appears in Edinburgh Evening News newspaper.
