Valley Gardens Infrastructure

This project focuses on two strategic routes in the centre of Brighton which aims to simplify the existing highway network through Valley Gardens, enhancing the cycle and pedestrian networks whilst improving safety. The works cover the full range of highway, civil engineering and landscaping works and included:

• 1.7km of new and realigned carriageways (18,000m²) and construction of five major signalised junctions
• 9,000m² of paved footways, parking bays/loading bays and 1,200m² of cycleways
• 7,000m² of flexible resin-bound gravel shared footway and cycleways
• Installation of 150 trees, significant soft landscaping and planting, street lighting and signage

The scheme required extensive traffic and pedestrian management undertaken in 34 separate phases. Throughout construction, live traffic continued to travel adjacent to working zones which required careful management together with the requirement to accommodate the weekly events held by the diverse community of Brighton.

Due to the extremely complex traffic environment, extensive bespoke temporary traffic management designs and equipment were required. Valley Gardens is a critical hub for public transport in the city and the temporary traffic management employed had to maintain essential bus routes flowing throughout the scheme works. We diverted existing traffic flows multiple times with contraflow and segregated traffic techniques. We employed a local specialist traffic management consultancy to assist us with this which resulted in traffic flows being managed better than expected by the client with less disruption and complaints reported.

There were significant multiple buried services encountered on the scheme, some in unknown or incorrect locations, and works to basement structures, listed and historic buildings and historically important infrastructure such as foundations of defunct tram lines. The scheme posed many unforeseen circumstances that needed to be resolved on a day-to-day basis. These issues were overcome through a commitment to collaborative working and the specialist knowledge of the project team. Throughout the project, existing infrastructure led to technically challenging design queries. Our project team supported innovative solutions which reduced delays, disruption and client costs and brought their experience of running similarly large and complex inner-city redevelopment schemes to understand and anticipate issues before they arose.

We worked with our surfacing specialists to install an innovative surfacing solution which provided an ultra-high-performance asphalt. This offered the client significant benefits including reduced maintenance costs through greater durability and productivity benefits which accelerated installation time, reduced programme times and minimised disruption and road closures.

Within the scheme we were tasked with constructing a number of busy junctions which had main arterial routes feeding into them. We researched and implemented a temporary traffic light system that mimicked the clients permanent traffic light operations that was half the cost of the commonly used SRL temporary lights system. This was the first time such a system had been used outside of London which took a huge amount of coordination, commitment from us, Siemens and the client to implement it. It proved very successful and was used on four separate junctions during the project.