Final push to install 8,500-tonne M27 underpass
BBCA huge concrete structure that will form a new junction on the M27 motorway is ready to be slid into position, according to engineers.
Work begins on Christmas Eve to install the 8,500-tonne, four-lane wide underpass, as part of a £100m project run by Hampshire County Council and National Highways.
The M27 will be closed in both directions between Junction 9 for Whiteley and 11 for Fareham from 20:00 GMT on 24 December until 04:00 on 4 January.
Hundreds of thousands of vehicles will be diverted along the A27 during the closure.
The council said the project involved "the creation of a new dual carriageway, with four roundabouts, to link the slip roads to the existing road network, forming a 'free flowing link' at Junction 10".
The new pre-built underpass will connect Fareham with the Welborne Garden Village development.
It will be slid into place between a trench cut into the embankment, after which the motorway will then be rebuilt above.
The installation will take 12 days and the motorway is expected to reopen by 4 January next year, but the £100m two-year construction scheme will not be finished and fully open to traffic until winter 2026.
The executive member for Highways from Hampshire County Council, Lulu Bowerman, said: "This project is my baby, I'm really proud to be part of this and the team delivering it.
"It has been an amazing project, to watch over the last 12 and more months.
"We've been standing down there in the pit, learning all about it in the last few visits and now here we are looking at all the technical machines and how its all going to work.
"I'm really looking forward to, can I dare say it, being here over the Christmas period because it is the first for Hampshire, and the first for our team to deliver such a project in this way.
"I wouldn't want to be anywhere else but here overseeing it all."
Project director for construction firm VolkerFitzpatrick Adrian Mawdsley said: "It is a very technical operation and we have got specialist suppliers who have done this many times before so we are in good hands.
"We've done a lot of planning, the team has done a cracking job at putting all the plans in place.
"So, we have accounted for everything, we know the time of year we are doing this and the weather could be against us.
"We've got all out contingency plans in place."
Tim Lawton, assistant director at Hampshire County Council, said: "This is an enormous operation, one of the largest civil engineering project that the council has ever delivered.
"The operation to put the new underpass in place, has been more than a year in planning and is planned meticulously.
"We have got high confidence that the operation will go smoothly, with crews working around the clock right through Christmas to get the job done as quickly as possible."
Sam O'Neil owns a hair salon in Fareham and said the motorway closure would lose her about three days of business.
"The whole of December we are usually flat out," she said.
"This year we can't open it's just not worth it because people, clients and staff can't get here.
"It's going to have a massive impact and it's a real shame, the few days in between Christmas that we are open, financially really help to cover for the quiet January."
Andrew Jackson, National Highways programme manager, said: "Traffic levels are much lower over the festive period but there will be significant delays, and so our advice is to plan your journeys carefully.
"These works allow us to accelerate this important scheme and stimulate economic growth across the region by supporting the building of up to 6,000 new homes and the creation of thousands of new jobs."
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