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Gabion baskets create retaining walls for SMART motorway
Phi Group installed over 1, 600m3 of gabions, supplying both the 6G gabon infill stone and 1,000m3 granular backfill material to create retaining walls along stretches of the M1 motorway.
In order to help ease congestion, major motorways in the UK are being upgraded to SMART Motorways by extending carriageways to 4 lanes by including the hard shoulder. To enable this, emergency refuge areas need to be created which often involves cutting into and extending existing embankments.
A large project to effect this was undertaken by the construction groups Costain and Galliford Try on the M1 motorway between Junctions 16 and 19.
The challenge
The main challenge with this project was installing the gabion baskets on a very busy live motorway. Delivery of materials was restricted and additional resources were required to act as banksmen and to adhere to the high levels of Health & Safety specified by both the Client and Phi Group.
The solution
Gabon baskets were specified by the client’s engineer, with retained heights up to 3.0M.
Phi Group installed over 1,600m3 of gabions, supplying both the 6G gabion infill stone and over 1,000m3 of granular backfill material. Phi Group were responsible to coordinating the delivery of all of this material to the working area. This required careful programming and co-ordination with Costain GallifiordTry.
