By rosebell
Transfering HS2 trains through the village of Burton Green, near Kenilworth, this tunnel, as one of five green tunnels being built on the project, is due to feature a green space above for use by the local community following completion. In order to helping them blend into the natural landscape, these shallower tunnels will be finished with planting on top.
The location of constructing green tunnels alongside with Burton Green, will be at Copthall in Hillingdon, Wendover in Buckinghamshire, and Chipping Warden and Greatworth, at 2.7km, the longest of the green tunnels, both in Northamptonshire.
While the responsibility of delivering this project is up to HS2’s main works civils contractor for the West Midlands, Balfour Beatty Vinci (BBV), Mott MacDonald engineers from the Mott MacDonald SYSTRA Design Joint Venture (DJV) will designe it and the Burton Green structure is being built using a top down construction method which involves building the structure from existing ground level. This includes initially building the side walls and roof of the tunnel, with large openings to ease excavation. The tunnel is then excavated and the tunnel base is constructed.
Completion of the 200m-long southern portal entrance and a series of underground structural elements, including retaining walls and more than 1,300 piles, using 33,000m3 of concrete in total, were the works on the tunnel in 2023.
Including further tunnel excavation work,whereas excavated soil being reused as part of wider landscaping plans, and the installation of roof slabs, base slabs and internal structures, the next phase of the build ahead of full completion in autumn 2026 will be the current focus of an onsite team of 150 people in the project.
According to HS2 senior project manager Doug Barnett: “We’re incredibly proud to have achieved the 50% completion mark at Burton Green Tunnel and to be celebrating this milestone moment. Delivering a complex structure of this scale requires a huge amount of expertise and energy, which is thanks to everyone involved – from onsite engineers and machine operators, to design and support colleagues working behind the scenes.”
Also BBV project manager Rupert Blake said: “It was hugely rewarding to lead the delivery of the tunnel. This is a fascinating structure both in terms of scale and complexity, but its green characteristics are what really sets this tunnel apart.”
Providing a link from Balsall Common to Kenilworth via Burton Green for walkers, cyclists and horse-riders, a key feature of the Burton Green Tunnel for people in the local area is the realignment of the Kenilworth Greenway. After construction and landscape work is complete, the Greenway is going to be restored close to its original alignment, running across the top of the new tunnel.
While the railway is being built, HS2 has created a temporary route for the Kenilworth Greenway.
Tim Akers, engineering manager for Mott MacDonald Systra Design Joint Venture, described the tunnel as a railway within a landscape where the original character of the Kenilworth Greenway and ecological connectivity to the wider landscape were restored.
In recent weeks in the West Midlands, work started on the 2,000 underground columns that will support Birmingham’s Curzon Street Station, as well as the foundation work for a new bridge designed to carry HS2 trains under a section of the A38 near Lichfield.
