Power Road bridge project lane closures to continue until autumn 2018

Gunnersbury Avenue north of Chiswick Roundabout. Picture: Google Street View

The project to replace the Power Road Bridge at the North Circular near Chiswick Roundabout is going to take much longer than planned with disruptive roadworks continuing for at least nine months. Northbound traffic will be reduced to a single lane for this time.

Transport for London (TfL) say that difficult ground conditions in the worksite area mean that they are not able to fully re-open the A406 Gunnersbury Avenue on schedule in December 2017. All four lanes are now planned to re-open in autumn 2018, although they say they are actively
looking for opportunities to improve on this.

Before they could begin the bridge demolition, TfL installed a utility bridge to house the pipes and cables which were in the bridge. Heavy lifting equipment was required to lift the new utility bridge into place. However, difficult ground conditions made this more complicated than expected, and extensive additional supports had to be installed to ensure the lifting equipment was safe. This took a considerable amount of time and delayed both the installation of the utility bridge and the movement of the pipes and cables into this new bridge.

These delays meant TfL were unable to carry out the bridge demolition works as planned. The critical demolition and rebuilding phases for this project can only be completed while the railway below the bridge is closed. A demolition of this type requires a track closure of at least 75 hours. Track closures of over 72 hours are usually only available over bank holidays or the Christmas period, and when there are no other planned works along the railway line. The western section of the bridge was demolished and removed during the August Bank Holiday weekend 2017.

TfL say they have worked closely with Network Rail to secure a new track closure date to carry out the demolition of the remaining eastern of section of the bridge. This is now scheduled to take place over the Easter Bank Holiday weekend 2018.

Until then, they will continue to rebuild the western section of the bridge. This includes preparing the road so traffic can be moved onto the newly constructed western section of the bridge, ahead of the Easter demolition. They now plan to complete the main construction works for the eastern section of the new bridge in autumn 2018, when all four lanes will be re-opened.

Final works, including reinstatement of footways and cycle routes across the bridge, are planned for completion by summer 2019.

While work on the bridge continues, the current traffic management arrangementswill remain in place. The A406 Gunnersbury Avenue will remain open in both directions, with one lane northbound and two lanes southbound. Some further short term reductions to one lane in each direction will be needed for key phases of the works.

November 21, 2017