From Monday 19 February for approximately 41 weeks, our contractors I&G Contractors Ltd will be installing a new gas main along Burndell Road, Bilsham Road, Yapton Road and along the A259.
With the increased demand for gas in the area and additional pressures on the electric infrastructure that is reliant on gas, this work is essential to ensure we can continue to maintain a safe and efficient gas supply to the local area.
We will need to excavate the road to install the new gas main. For everyone's safety, this means we’ll need to have temporary two and three-way traffic lights around our work area.
The work will be carried out in the following phases:
Phase one
For approximately ten weeks
We’ll be working along Yapton Road and Burndell Road from its junction with Drake Grove to the roundabout at Bilsham Road.
We’ll be working under temporary two and three-way traffic lights as required.
Resident access will be maintained to driveways and the team on the ground will liaise directly with properties affected on local arrangements.
We're sorry for the disruption and inconvenience our work may cause to the local community.
The new gas main is needed due to an increased demand for gas supply in the area. Extra capacity is critical for keeping the local electricity power station generated, again supplying the local area.
The gas network that this new main will need to connect to is located along Yapton Road and surrounding roads. There is no other alternative route.
We need to excavate (also known as open cutting) to install the new gas main. To avoid needing to return to do the connections and gassing the main up, we’re going to do this as we progress. This will save time and further disruption for the local community.
We appreciate this is a busy road, particularly during peak hours. We’ll be using temporary two and three-way traffic lights and will closely monitor how they are running, having people at pinch-point locations.
During phase two, we’ll have another team working on the A259 at the same time. Having two teams at this stage will help speed up progress.
There are no planned interruptions to gas supplies. If for any reason we need to isolate a supply we’ll speak to the properties affected and make any necessary arrangements in advance.
There are many reasons why we are not able to work at night on infrastructure of this size.
- Safety is our priority – our engineers are working with live gas flowing at a significant pressure
- Risk mitigation – other critical infrastructure is located underground, which presents an increased risk of loss of supplies when working in night-time conditions and with less visibility. Essential response teams are on hand during the day if needed.
- We're allowed to work Monday to Friday from 8am to 5pm
and on Saturdays from 8am to 1pm. These are in place to make sure residents and the community are given breaks from noisy work and are not disrupted during the night.
There are many reasons why engineers may not be visible on site:
- Local pressure testing – during the installation process, we need to maintain local pressures in the gas network. This needs engineers to be off-site at multiple governor locations across the area monitoring/adjusting local pressures within the network. This is essential to maintain local gas supplies.
- Resurfacing – we may also not be present on weekends when resurfacing is carried out and curing of road surfaces is required.
- Collection of materials – we may need to leave our work site to collect parts and materials for the following day, which cannot be stored on site.
- Completed work – when further engineering works are not possible until the following day, continuing to work would take our team over their permitted working hours. This would go against safety restrictions of night-time working and mandatory fatigue restrictions enforced by the government.