Manchester Airport Runway 2

During this earthworks contract, a tunnel was created at the point where the runway passes over the River Bollin.

The river valley was infilled to create an embankment over which the runway crossed the river. This meant that approximately 2.5 million m³ of earth had to be moved from either side of the valley. The inherent poor quality of materials encountered, in excess of 300,000m³, necessitated various methods of earthworks, including:

• Stockpiling to enable material drying
• Phased filling to allow reduction in moisture content
• Mixing good quality and poor quality materials at the point of excavation to achieve an acceptable fill.
• Addition of lime to reduce the high moisture content
• Breaking out and processing of 40,000m³ of existing aprons and foundation to produce capping and drainage layer.

At the peak of the earthmoving season, VHE had over 100 items of plant on site and was excavating in excess of 120,000m³ of earth per week.