Port of Tilbury and S Walsh’s new construction alliance – London Construction Link (LCL) – have started the water-bourne delivery of the Thames Tideway Tunnel (TTT) project offices to Central London.
The first of 99 office segments were loaded aboard specialist pontoons provided by S Walsh and will be transported 22 nautical miles up the Thames from the Port of Tilbury to Chamber Wharf on the Southern bank of the river. Over 13 barge journeys will be completed each carrying up to 12 offices across two pontoons.
The offices are part of the enabling works to set up the Chamber Wharf drive site for TTT – the £4.2billion construction project which will create a 16 mile new sewage tunnel for London. This is one of the first movements by water for the TTT project completed by London Construction Link* who have provided the storage, handling and the delivery by water to the site where the offices are in place for the duration of the project expected to complete in 2023.
Commenting on the project Peter Ward, Senior Asset Manager from the Port of Tilbury said: “We are excited to be part of this major construction project in London. With the delivery of the offices for the Tideway East project team, we have demonstrated how effective water-bourne transportation is to deliver into Central London. By using the River Thames, we are not only reducing the road mile impact for the project but we are also helping to reduce congestion on the roads.
At London Construction Link we hope to continue to provide a range of supporting services to all three contractors involved in the TTT project over the next few years offering our expertise in warehouse consolidation, water-bourne transportation and handling services.”
Westley Pickup, Commercial Director from S Walsh said: “Tideway Tunnel is a real testament to what can be achieved by using the River Thames to reduce lorry movements within Central London whilst reducing the risk to vulnerable road users. S.Walsh has invested over £3,000,000 in the last 12 months on new marine transportation equipment in order to support works on the River Thames and the LCL Alliance.
LCL is able to handle and deliver everything from a tunnel boring machine to containers. We are proud LCL is now being recognised as a an end to end solution and we hope we can build on this working closely with stakeholders and clients in the future to provide the most cost effective and efficient solutions”
Prior to handling the office delivery project, London Construction Link handled over 20,000 tonnes of spoil created from the ground preparations at Chamber Wharf. Walsh handled the barging operation and onward haulage with The Port of Tilbury providing and managing the unloading operation from barge to truck. Again by using water-bourne transport, this not helped to prevent additional truck congestion on the central London roads, but also provided C02 benefits for the project.
* London Construction Link is an alliance between the Port of Tilbury and S Walsh offering construction solutions for sites near or beside the Thames. Based at the seaport, LCL is a versatile consolidation and distribution facility combining river access with excellent road, rail and IT-driven storage management infrastructure to create a facility that can store and move all kinds of construction-related materials through a number of different modes to minimise empty lorry running and construction site storage, with associated CO2 and cyclist safety benefits. LCL is CLOCS (Construction Logistics and Cyclist Safety) Champion and is FORS GOLD (Fleet Operator Recognition Scheme) registered.
