Thats how they get things built in such a short space of time :)
 

15 Storys..


No problem

SITE NWS ETC......


http://www.vidiload.com/video/103821...ilt_In_6_Days/

Mart

Very impressive!

Les

Aye and it will take 4 days before it falls down again..

http://online.wsj.com/media/shbuildi...0211045212.jpg

Although it shows how slow our bunch are; they spend more time putting up/moving safety netting/barriers than actually building the building. :rolleyes:

Used to travel down the A1 to Petrborough every July on my way to the French Med coast.

In 4 years, the guys here replaced 12 miles of dual carriageway with 4-lane, not very well drained road, on the original alignment, perfectly flat, two junctions.

In the same time, the French built over 100 miles of dual carriageway through the mountains, including bridges, tunnels, cuttings and viaducts, all from the bare earth, nowt there to start with. It included around 12 major junctions. They also included several rest areas and two major service areas.

Go figure.

Spain is the same Alcazar (apart from less tolls :D ). Its is awe inspriing that they can build so much faster than we can. I often thing UK building contractors are intentionally milking it (especially when its government funded projects).

I've travelled up parts of the A22...a brand new road that is perfect - and with temps down to minus -8 degrees with snow and ice, the roads have no have dips or potholes to collect ice. One could max out a Bugatti Veyron on some sections on a nice day. The A1/E5 is a similar story, as is parts of the the A67.

They also built a major portion of the A7 (about 50kms) and AP7 in less time than it took to resurface the M6 across the North of Birmingham (again - its a 2 yearly practice, taking over a year to complete, so its never ending). And when its complete, it doesn't drain, surface water galour...great fun when hitting standing water at 60mph in lane 3. Spain has deep V-groves either side to drain off surface water...no drains to clog with leaves and easily servicable (just get a JCB to dredge it out into a tipper).

Even the N-roads have recieved impressive by-passes and graded junctions. Alicante has had its main arterial roads upgraded with bendy-bus friendly underpasses and overpasses, and were built in less than half the time it has taken for Birmingham to demolish all of theirs (causing more congestion instead of relieving it - and pushing more stress on outer roads and already insufficent public transport :cuckoo: ). Also Spain tries to remove traffic light control infavour of graded junctions and roundabouts to help traffic flow...whereas Birmingham installs more traffic lights and creates gridlock.

They also build/resurface roads without interupting traffic flow to much (less H&S = less cones ;) ) with all temporary traffic lights controlled by hand. Also utility infrastructure is at the side of the road, not in the road (water, sewers, electric, phones etc), so any utility work involves digging up the pavement/sidewalk, not the road.


Whilst back home I arrive at Plymouth to enounter entire gridlock (1hour to get out of the city) or Folkestone to a motorway flooded with surface water. And two main roads I use to get to work are jammed due to incorrectly timed temporary taffic lights due to "Gas Alliance" renewing the gas mains that lies in the middle of the road (and when they finsihe, its full of bad quality repairs that quickly turn into potholes)

And I drive to Lincoln on the A46 which they've "ONLY" just last year decided to make into a dual carriageway for its entire length (Newark to Lincoln), FFS its only been needed for the past twenty years. And it will take ANOTHER year to complete.

Spain are even building a ultra high speed inter-city/EU rail infrastructure - and guess what, it'll be complete before the UK has even started to improve their rail infrastructure

What a farce!

With new road construction its all down to green/political/planning issues ( and the resultant 'public enquiry' ) and cost.

Would I stay there ?


Nope !

Its all down to the many forms all the different rules and regulations we have to abide by.

Then there are the multitude of local authorities and councils responsible for different sections of road which includes the Highways Agency.

If you want to build or repair a road, there are just too many different organisations that are legally invovled to do it in a speedy fashion.

In Spain & France I imagine they identify a problem work on the sollution and then build it. Meanwhile whilst the Spanish / French scheme is almost complete, the 500m of new road required for the ring road in Britian is still going through public consultation - thats after the environmenal and safety concerns have been addressed.