Skip to main content

ICE pledges support for Mersey Gateway Project

The Mersey Gateway Project in Liverpool, UK, has been endorsed by the UK’s most senior civil engineer, Nick Baveystock, director general of the Institution of Civil Engineers, on a trip to the area see the location of the new bridge and learn more about plans for the project. The centrepiece of the Mersey Gateway Project is a new six-lane toll bridge over the River Mersey. The existing Silver Jubilee Bridge will also be tolled as part of the project, which is expected to help create thousands of new jobs
September 24, 2013 Read time: 2 mins
The Mersey Gateway Project in Liverpool, UK, has been endorsed by the UK’s most senior civil engineer, Nick Baveystock, director general of the Institution of Civil Engineers, on a trip to the area see the location of the new bridge and learn more about plans for the project.

The centrepiece of the Mersey Gateway Project is a new six-lane toll bridge over the River Mersey. The existing Silver Jubilee Bridge will also be tolled as part of the project, which is expected to help create thousands of new jobs, secure inward investment to the area and deliver important regeneration benefits.

Halton Borough Council, which is promoting the project, has announced the appointment of the Merseylink consortium as the preferred bidder on the project. The two parties are expected to sign a formal contract by the end of the year, with construction work starting shortly afterwards and the new bridge scheduled to open in 2017.

Baveystock said: “This visit has given me the opportunity to engage with the project team on this major infrastructure development and discuss how we can mutually support one another in promoting civil engineering. I’m impressed with the vision that the team here at Halton Borough Council has shown to bring this project to a reality.”

Project director Steve Nicholson said: “We’re delighted to get this endorsement from the ICE. We’ve worked closely with bodies like the ICE over a number of years to get to this stage and it is exciting to think now that Mersey Gateway can be a demonstration project for other civil engineers, not just here in the UK but around the world.”

Rob Polhill, Leader of Halton Borough Council, said: “ICE North West has been an advocate of the Mersey Gateway scheme from the beginning, particularly in recognising the social and economic benefits it will bring to the region. Its support has certainly added weight to the already compelling arguments for a second River Mersey crossing”.

Related Content

  • Travel times halve for tolling converts
    August 5, 2013
    The Port Mann Bridge in Vancouver is a prime example of how the latest ITS systems enable new infrastructures to be built and paid for while still providing additional user benefits. Vancouver has 2.2 million inhabitants and, like so many major cities, is divided into two by a river, the Frazer river. This combination makes Vancouver the second most congested city in North America and the most congested in Canada. Through the middle of the city runs the Trans-Canadian Highway 1 which crosses the Frazer Riv
  • NOCoE delivers data for diligent DOTs
    April 29, 2015
    David Crawford talks to Dennis Motiani about the role of the new National Operations Centre of Excellence. Consolidating the collective experience of the US transportation system’s management and operations (TSM&O) community, streamlining its information gathering, while cutting research times and costs are the key drivers behind the country’s new National Operations Centre of Excellence (NOCoE). Launched in January at the annual meeting of the Transportation Research Board (TRB), this sets out to be a sin
  • Enforcement needs automation and communication
    February 1, 2012
    TISPOL's Peter van de Beek questions whether the thought processes which drive enforcement technology development are always the right ones. Peter van de Beek sees an ever-greater role for technology in traffic enforcement but is concerned that the emphasis of technological development and discussion is not always in the right places. 'Old-fashioned' face-to-face policing remains as valid as it ever did, he feels, but adds that there should be greater communication with those engaged at the sharp end of saf
  • ITS needs continuity at the policy-making level
    February 1, 2012
    ITS needs to be sold to politicians in plainer terms and we need to be encouraging greater continuity at the policy-making level says Josef Czako, chairman of the IRF's Policy Committee on ITS. At the ITS World Congress in New York in 2008, the International Road Federation (IRF) held the inaugural meeting of its Policy Committee on ITS. The Policy Committee's formation, says its chairman, Kapsch's Josef Czako, reflects an ongoing concern over the lack of deployment of ITS technology on roads in anything li