The Director of Regeneration and Place has decided to undertake procurement exercises to appoint contractors to assess the bridge superstructures on five bridges and one tunnel along the route of the Dock Branch rail corridor. The contractors are to be procured via a tendering exercise.

This matter affects Birkenhead and Tranmere Ward and is not a key decision.

The Dock Branch rail corridor is currently in the ownership of Network Rail (NR), and in order to develop the park the corridor needs to be acquired by Wirral Borough Council. There are a number of bridges and one tunnel that will be transferred to the Council’s ownership. These structures, once acquired, will become the responsibility of the Council to maintain and so undertaking these assessments can ensure that any necessary maintenance works can be organised using capital funding on acquisition, as opposed to highways maintenance budgets going forward.

Due to the Waterloo Place bridge being infilled in (as part of the Hind Street enabling works) this bridge will be exempt from the assessment. The Mollington Link Bridge is also exempt due to it being built circa 2003 to modern construction standards and is deemed to be not present a risk (as discussed with Highways Team). Therefore assessments are needed on the following bridges/tunnel: Cleveland Street Bridge, Brook Street East Bridge, Price Street Bridge, Adelphi Street Bridge, Argyle Street Bridge and Haymarket Tunnel.

There will be two elements to the assessments: 1. Inspection for Assessments and 2. Intrusive Surveys.

The inspection for assessments will be overseen by a specialist consultant to produce:

•Inspection for Assessment Reports (1No. for each bridge)
•Assessment Approval in Principle Reports
•Assessment Calculations and associated Assessment Report
•Options Report and Options Table

A procurement exercise for the Inspection for Assessments will take place via the NHS SBS Framework where contractors will be invited to bid. The upper limit for the cost has been determined to be £250,000 but is expected to be less than that figure.
The Intrusive Surveys will be undertaken by a bridge specialist contractor which gives valuable pre-construction buildability advice and a joined-up approach, that links to the design stages of the project. The cost has been determined to be approximately £52,500.
These contracts are necessary as the Council does not have the expertise in house.

The total cost will be determined by the procurement tendering exercise but likely to be less than £302,500. The contracts will be funded from the Council’s Birkenhead Regeneration Delivery Fund with the finance department signing off the expenditures via internal SMART form processes.

1.Do nothing: Not arrange the inspections for assessments and the Council would take on the responsibility of all bridges without understanding their condition. This was discounted as it would likely result in large maintenance costs picked up the highways department over the course of the next 10-20 years. It would also likely result of unplanned closures of bridges and the road networks they support for long periods of time, causing lots of disruption and added costs/resources.

2. Undertake full bridge deck replacements on all bridges and structures, regardless of their condition and whether they need replacing. This option was discounted as would add a lot of unnecessary cost, when a repair option may give the same outcome (minimal maintenance for a 20-year period).