By Lynda Myer
Heads of the Lower Thames Crossing_ Highways England project bosses_ have surveyed their counterparts working on High Speed 2’s (HS2’s) Chilterns tunnels.
The fact-finding mission, was done by attendance of Lower Thames Crossing executive director Matt Palmer, the project director Shaun Pidcock, stakeholder engagement lead Phil Stanier and senior HR business partner Jason Fairchild.
The hosts of this team were representatives from HS2 Ltd and the Align JV comprising of Sir Robert McAlpine, VolkerFitzpatrick and Bouygues.
In a LinkedIn post, Fairchild said that they had “learnt loads” that could be applied to the set-up of the Lower Thames Crossing tunnelling portals.
According to the post Fairchild asserted: “Thank you to HS2 (High Speed Two) Ltd and Align JV for our superb visit to Maple Cross tunnel construction site. Myself, Matt Palmer, Shaun Pidcock, Phil Stanier went to visit the site to get an idea of the set up ready for our own tunnel construction operation on the Lower Thames Crossing programme.”
“We had a brilliant time expertly hosted by Lisa Lewis and Tom Hough. We learnt loads about the tunnelling operation and the overall set up of the site. It was very impressive and there is a lot that we can take away in readiness,” added Fairchild.
He continued: “As we were walking out we spied a lone poppy, fighting to hold on amongst the hard core and all the construction machinery. A nice reminder that nature was here before us and it will be here long after all of the machinery has disappeared.”
While HS2 started up the second of two 170m long TBMs at the site earlier this week and they are going to excavate twin 16km-long tunnels under the Chilterns. Lately, due to pulling the plans at the back end of last year because of the environmental and construction concerns raised by the Planning Inspectorate, a new consultation round has been launched by the Lower Thames Crossing team.
The estimated time for presenting a new planning application for the scheme to connect Essex and Kent is the end of the year.
In accordance with Lower Thames Crossing Roads North project director Andrew Thompson-Jones’s interview with NCE, in order to preventing similar issues with the road project, his team was precisely surveying at construction complaints lodged against the high speed rail project.
