The use of soil nailing & rockfall netting was required for the A21 widening project. In its original guise the A21 was a notoriously congested stretch of road. Often causing crippling delays for commuters into and out of London.
To alleviate this, Highways England took the decision to widen the road. The topography and surrounding land use adjacent to the carriageway meant that the new sections had to fit within a constricted footprint. To achieve this the only option was to work within the this existing footprint by steepening the existing slopes.
With the embankments at either side now being significantly steeper it meant that additional stabilisation measures would be required by means of installing soil nails and rockfall netting .
Once the slopes had been cut back to the steeper angle, CAN followed up installing 1876 soil nails to the southbound, northbound and Castle Hill Sections of the road.
Once the soil nails had been installed the slopes were covered with 7100m2 of Tecmat erosion matting and TECCO G65/2 rockfall netting. The erosion matting will quickly promote the natural vegetation of the area to take hold again meaning that the slope will quickly grass over and blend in again.
Duration: 37 weeks
Client: Balfour Beatty
Location: South East England