Royal HaskoningDHV was recently awarded a Certificate of Excellence at the Institute of Civil Engineers’ Yorkshire and Humber awards for its role in designing and building the £9 million A174 Sandsend Road coastal protection scheme.
The scheme was completed in partnership with Balfour Beatty on behalf of North Yorkshire County Council.
To extend the life of this critical regional road, Royal HaskoningDHV and Balfour Beatty developed and delivered an integrated suite of coastal protection, slope stabilization and highways works which started on site in late 2014 and were completed in summer 2016.
One of the main challenges was constructing the revetments to help protect the coast from erosion. Around 450 pre-cast concrete revetment units needed to be placed between tides on the popular beach.
A bespoke installation system called the Mobile Unit Lifting Equipment (MULE) was developed, reducing risk to the workforce and the public by removing the need for a crane on the beach.
Two MULEs carried and placed the 13t units from a single crane location over the length of the 1km long defense. The system increased productivity; enabling installation of pre-cast units during normally inaccessible high tides.