Knights Brown was appointed to construct and install this new footbridge, which will be adopted by Greenwich Borough Council. At high tide, the bridge swings open allowing access for private river traffic and aggregate barges to the ready-mix batching plant.

The main bridge was pre-fabricated off-site with our project team coordinating and overseeing the fabrication process. The structure consists of sculptural, externally painted weathering steel plate with folded steel plates concealING a 9m backspan containing a 120 tonnes steel counterweight to balance the 44m main span as it opens.

Access restrictions necessitated extensive planning of the construction sequence and delivery of the prefabricated sections. The main spans were transported by road in three pieces and assembled on the river bank.

The mast comprises a pair of flat, 40mm thick plates separated by inclined plate stiffeners, which creates an open and transparent structure that acts like a Vierendeel strut in compression. The four-span steel approach structure also uses thick plates in compression with the piers fabricated from single plates.

A high degree of engineering complexity was successfully managed by the project team including the provision of a sheet piled cofferdam installed on an inter-tidal terrace. This also acted as a piling mat for CFA piles, and significant amounts of back-propping to the basement, to provide adequate support for the 300T crane and construction traffic required to complete the works.