Shore Street Roundabout

Shore Street Roundabout

Client: Riverside Inverclyde
Architect:
Cost: £0.7m

A new 100m spur road from the A8 Tesco Roundabout to Shore Street with the purpose of providing a high quality gateway to Port Glasgow town centre. Also included was a high quality public realm enhancement on Shore Street incorporating an etched design reflecting traditional local mould loft patterns onto the granite surface.

Services Provided: Civil Engineering, Lead Consultant, and Contract Administration

Challenges: The project entailed obtaining design approval from Transport Scotland, Scottish Water and Inverclyde Council. The A8 roundabout generally did not lend itself to the addition of a 5th leg. Design of the new spur was complicated by both existing utility services and the requirement to achieve a fully compliant deflection.

WRD procured and coordinated specialist consultants with regard to traffic assessment, Road User Safety Audits, soils investigation, topographical surveys and drainage surveys.

Problems overcame included reservations from Inverclyde Council Roads Department on the traffic issues, utility adjustment of the existing pedestrian crossing, liaison with bus companies on bus stop alterations, swept path analyses on HGVs turning left onto Shore Street with the aim of minimising junction radii to improve pedestrian accessibility, assessment of traffic overtaking buses in a slightly narrowed Shore Street, Transport Scotland approval procedures, adjustment to trunk road signage, design of drainage to suit the differing ownerships of land between Inverclyde Council and Transport Scotland, and provision of a fully compliant SUDS design for new road areas which was achieved by the provision of a swale with underdrain located in a severely restricted area.

The project design was monitored closely with regard to construction cost and client budget. Options were presented in design and material selections to ensure costs remained within Client budget. WRD worked closely with the project QS and Landscape Architect to achieve this.

In the public realm area WRD worked closely with Ironside Farrar and provided the sub structure and drainage design to support their granite surfacing design work, also with due regard to shallow utilities found during construction. We carried out adjustments to the designs once the main contractor was appointed, in order to take advantage of their experience based suggestions on the buildability and sequencing of various foundation types for the trafficked and pedestrian areas.