The largely good weather of the past two weeks means that work has been progressing well on preparing the two cantilevers for the start of the water proofing. As the various phases have to be done in sequence, allowing time for the different materials to dry out or to cure in between, dry weather is essential to enable the next stage to be carried out without any undue delays. Unfortunately the wet weather experienced overnight meant that the team carrying out the shot blasting had to wait for the deck to dry before work could begin this morning.
While this week’s deck inspections have identified some areas of damage which need to be repaired, so far this has been fairly limited. Grinding has continued today on the damaged deck plate on the south cantilever.
Earlier today a collision on A38 just after the St Budeaux off slip road resulted in a car coming to rest on its roof. The accident, which took place at 4.40 am, led to a build-up of traffic on the A38 back towards Manadon and Plymouth. As the incident occurred on the A38 the incident was dealt with by Highways England who are responsible for managing the trunk road. The vehicle was recovered and the road re-opened to traffic just after 8am. Inevitably the accident led to delays for drivers travelling into Cornwall while the vehicle was recovered. While there were no significant delays to east bound traffic while the incident was ongoing, once the road had been re-opened control room staff had to keep two lanes westbound to clear the build-up of traffic on the A38. We are aware that this led to delays for eastbound traffic and heavy traffic in North Road for a short period and apologise for any inconvenience this caused to drivers.
Today work has continued on removing the remaining surface material from the North cantilever using the rubber duck and the mobile sweeper. Grinding works using specialist equipment have taken place on areas of damaged deck plate on the South cantilever. Additional desk inspections have also been carried out by staff from the waterproofing company to check for any further areas of damage which need to be repaired. Deck top blasting has also continued on the South cantilever, together with additional blasting using a ride on vacuum blast unit.