Newcastle Great Park Spine Road

We designed and supported the construction phase of the Great Park Spine Road project between 2019 and 2022. The scheme delivered a 2.5 km link road with segregated shared footways and cycleways, bridge over the Ouseburn, culverts, mammal tunnel, diverted watercourse, SuDS features and public open space, and serves the creation of thousands of new homes, as well as new schools, shops, dental and hospital provision.

The new two-way single carriageway link road comprised a combination of offset and segregated shared footways and cycleways for the full length. It provides safe manoeuvres for pedestrians, cyclists and road users through three new roundabouts and stand-alone signalised junction. The scheme includes a 24m span skewed, curving and superelevated bridge over the Ouseburn, large meandering swales and basins with varying slope gradients to achieve a natural landscape, and mammal tunnel through the embankment to facilitate the movement of badgers. There are culverts and a diverted watercourse, environmental barriers to protect nearby residential properties and complex traffic management and tie-in arrangements to maintain the operation of existing live carriageways.

The design included and allowed for multi and staged phasing of works to allow the contractor to achieve early and partial completion of the northern section, allowing the road to open. This phasing was enabled by ground investigation and subsequent design by our geotechnical engineering team to achieve settlement of embankment fill material on the bridge approaches through a combination of vertical band drains and surcharging.