The St Thomas Street Development Cluster, in Southwark, central London, comprises six plots located close to London Bridge train station and western Europe’s tallest building, The Shard.
We worked with our client Mace to demonstrate how construction operations could work efficiently on the busy St Thomas Street without adding congestion. Our work included support for the initial bid process and then, focusing in on one of the plots to consider how the construction pit lane would work. We considered the specific challenges of demolition and construction, looking at road safety audits, how pedestrians could continue to move safely (including to and from the nearby entrance to London Bridge station), and how Network Rail would continue to access the station.
An essential consideration was St Thomas Street’s status as a strategic road, managed by TfL. With Guys Hospital close by it was critical to ensure that the hospital and ambulance route was not impacted, and that the road remained remained clear for construction and emergency vehicles.
We completed the strategic overview for multiple sites and construction routes to and from the site. During the overview we carefully reviewed other stakeholders in the area – including London Bridge station and Guys Hospital – and the routes to and from them for pedestrians and other road users.
We reviewed the utilities in both the carriageway and footway to ascertain if they would be suitable for pitlanes. We then carried out road safety audits on the designs that we completed and liaised with TfL for review and approval.
Finally, we identified a lorry holding corridor on nearby Druid Street to enable lorries to stop in a designated location rather than circulating in the area. We developed the general arrangement for the corridor and associated swept path analysis, and we expect the corridor to become active as the development progresses further.
