Orlando Street Bridge Infilling, Bolton Town Centre

Orlando Street Bridge is a six-span viaduct immediately adjacent to Bolton rail station. Although the main span still carries Orlando Street over the railway, most of the spans have laid redundant for many years following the removal of tracks to former rail sidings.

The bridge was approaching the end of its life expectancy and the weight limit over the bridge had been reduced to 7.5 tonnes following a structural assessment. The Council decided that strengthening works were necessary to three of the spans that were being leased out as garages. This would increase the bridge capacity to 40 tonne HGV loading.

Infilling of three spans with foam concrete to provide a long-term maintenance-free solution to ensuring load bearing capacity on Orlando Street. A total volume of 1300 cubic metres of foam concrete was placed in the three arches in pours not exceeding 1.0m high with all concrete being placed through delivery holes core drilled through the arches from the road above. 

Bethell were employed to strip out all the fittings from the former garages and block up the openings on both faces of the bridge with concrete blockwork faces with new masonry facings to match the existing bridge stonework. The existing cast iron parapets on one of the three spans were demolished and replaced with new DMRB-compliant parapets comprising of masonry facings and stonework copings concealing a reinforced concrete core. 

Other works completed on site included new surfacing to the road plus new kerbs and footpaths to both sides of Orlando Street.