Scaffolding for Bridge Repairs
The historic Kingston Bridge is a road bridge at Kingston upon Thames in south west London, which carries the major A308 commuter route across the River Thames.
It joins the town centre of Kingston in the Royal Borough of Kingston upon Thames to Hampton Court Park, Bushy Park and the village of Hampton Wick in Richmond upon Thames.
A variation of the bridge has been reported to have been in place since as far back in history as 1200 AD and it remains an important point at which traffic can cross the river.
Disrepair led to the bridge being rebuilt in the 19th century and, to this day, it still regularly carries many thousands of vehicles over the River Thames, with the highest amounts of traffic being present during peak times.
As is common for many historic buildings and structures, the bridge had once again fallen into disrepair in recent times and contractors were required to carry out repairs to the defective bridge parapets, balusters, plinths and coping stones on behalf of the local authority.
In 2022, Alltask was instructed to assist with this project and enable works to be carried out by erecting scaffolding to both faces of the balustrades for stone cleaning and repair works.
Navigation was restricted beneath the bridge and one span closed to allow overhead works to be completed safely.
Overcoming challenges of restricted access
Just over 100 tons of materials were required to complete the job, including 50 tons of concrete blocks… yet access was to prove a challenge.
The road closures required to transport materials to site were only allowed to be put in place during non-rush hour traffic, due to the importance of the road for commuter traffic, this made it tricky to work within the restricted times of 09:30 to14:00.
A well-executed job was expertly carried out by all the team who tackled the need for speed, complexity of the project and potential pitfalls of restrictive access.
All of the scaffolding contractors involved in the project commented on what a beautiful area it was to work in and great care and consideration was given by the Alltask team in completing the project successfully, due to the historic nature of the construction.