Work on a major new bypass project for the UK is now being handled by Aggregate Industries. The firm has already started work on the contract for the new Preston Western Distributor Road (PWDR).
This is the first major new bypass road to be constructed in the area since the Preston Bypass was built in 1958, the UK’s first ever stretch of motorway. A 13.3km section of road passing the east side of Preston, the Preston Bypass now forms part of the M6 motorway. The new PWDR will flow to the west of the city, linking Preston and southern Fylde to a new junction on the M55.
Scheduled to open in early 2023, the £200 million road scheme is the biggest new road programme in the Preston, South Ribble and Lancashire City Deal area and is intended to boost capacity on the existing local road network.
Aggregate Industries was awarded the contract by Costain and Lancashire County Council and is the sole supplier on the scheme delivering all the ready mix and aggregates.
As part of the project, the leading construction material supplier will provide and lay over 90,000tonnes of asphalt, which will be used to build pavements over the next 15 months.
Meanwhile, SiteBatch Technologies, Aggregate Industries’ specialised unit, which manufactures and supplies cementitious mixtures to large scale infrastructure projects such as this, has commissioned one of its mobile continuous mixing plants on site (in April), to supply 80,000tonnes of hydraulically bound materials (HBM) to the project.