A14 site visit

On a sunny, autumn day, 13 members of the CQI arrived at the Brampton compound of the A14 Cambridge to Huntingdon road Improvement Scheme. This £1.5bn Highways England scheme is currently one of the largest complex infrastructure projects in the UK and aims improve the currently overloaded section of road between Cambridge and Huntingdon.

Work commenced in November 2016 and the road is scheduled to open by December 2020. The scheme involves upgrading 21 miles of the A14, a major new bypass to the south of Huntingdon and widening of the A1 between Brampton and Alconbury. Upon completion, 10 million cubic meters of earth will have been moved and 34 new bridges will be constructed, including a 750m viaduct across the River Great Ouse.

The objective of the CQI visit, organised by the Greater Peterborough & Cambridge branch, was to gain an understanding of how quality is being managed on this major national infrastructure project. The onsite tour showed current activities and the project’s state of progress.

After the initial introductions, Howard Leeson, Quality Manager for the Brampton section of the project, gave a presentation on the Integrated Management System (IMS) and Project Quality Plan (PQP) used to manage quality on the A14 Project. He was supported by Arnie Wilson, the Document Package Manager. Leeson explained that the project is being delivered on behalf of Highways England by the A14 Integrated Delivery Team (IDT), a joint venture between Costain, Skanska, Balfour Beatty and designers Atkins/Ch2M. The IMS is based on a Skanska system, with adaptations from both Balfour Beatty and Costain to produce a system unique to the project (called iMS). This system is briefed to all people working on the project to ensure ‘one way of working’ (OWoW). Leeson gave details of the various audits and inspections of the work in progress and the records that are maintained. He then responded to a series of questions from members. 

A guided site tour followed. Because safety is the first imperative of the project, full personal protective equipment was provided for everyone. The tour was conducted using two minibuses to transport people to various on-site safe areas. The two tour guides, Curtis Connell and Ginny Singh, were very knowledgeable. They answered all the questions asked by members and pointed out many of the key features of each site.

During the tour, the group of CQI members saw the construction of the new sections of the A1 and A14 along with various road, rail and river bridges. One notable feature of the bridges was that, while they each have unique numbers, they are not geographically in sequence; thus, the group saw bridge 1, then 32, then 3 and finally bridges 5 and 6. The latter bridges cross the East Coast main line and the River Great Ouse. Also seen during the tour were two of the 'borrow pits' used to extract materials for the project. Borrow pit 1 is now exhausted and full of water with maximum depths up to 20 metres. Borrow pit 2 is still in use for extracting materials – it looked very much like a quarry with all of the many extraction levels clearly visible. Good weather meant the group were able to descend into the pit for a closer look. Back at the top they were able to see the huge articulated dumper trucks (ADTs) hauling materials from the pit to the construction sites. With such large bridge structures on the project, it was not surprising to see equally large cranes at work – the largest at 600-tonnes near bridge 5.

After the tour, the CQI members returned to the Brampton compound for a final debrief and a short, but very useful question and answer session with Mark Harrington, Head of Quality for the A14 Project, who kindly stayed behind to discuss specific issues with individuals.