The boss of the Eden firm Called on to get the M6 moving again on Friday has explained the huge logistical and physical task that had to be undertaken to replace the road surface and get traffic moving again and addressed motorists' frustrations following a road closure.
The M6 was closed on Friday until early Saturday morning after a lorry ploughed through the central reservation on the M6 at Clifton closing the North bound carriageway between J39 (Shap) to J40 (Penrith) on Friday morning.
The vehicle tipped its trailer leading to a massive fuel and hydraulic fluid spillage along with the load from the vehicles trailer closing the three lanes of the M6 Northbound and the third lane of the Southbound.
The camber and slopes along the section caused the fluids spilt to spread over a large area contaminating the road surface and causing it to be extremely slippery and unable to clean.
Emergency services worked to turn stuck traffic around on the M6 to clear the hundreds of vehicles gridlocked across three lanes between Clifton and Shap that had remained stuck for hours on the M6 forced to then to join the M6 traffic diversion on the A6 causing queuing traffic between Shap and Penrith at Kemplay Roundabout and tailbacks on the M6 south of Junction 39.
The condition created left National Highways with the only option to mill out the full area of road approximately 3120m2 and reinstate a new road surface.
Appleby based road surfacing experts Dinsdale Contractors were call on by National Highways at around 13:30 on Friday afternoon to prepare to mobilise to replace the contaminated road surface that had brought the M6 to a standstill following the accident, National Highways were unable to confirm the quantities involved or full extent of the damage to the M6 at the time.
Director of Dinsdale Contractors Joe Dinsdale said the “total tonnage removed and replaced was approximately 340 ton, using 2x asphalt plants from 2x suppliers but with that in mind they had no logistics available so we had to cross hire haulage as well as using our own tippers to make it happen and get the road up and running again as the disruption with the road being closed was phenomenal!”
“With us getting the call at 13:30 we managed to get everything on site for 16:30 despite the traffic in every direction being disrupted, our vehicles were also struggling to get to the scene.”
The team deployed to the M6 eventually managed to get the road surface removed and all the contaminated material cleared from site, along with the the area swept clean and reinstate the entire area, relay the surface course, install the new rib line, white lines and replace road studs.
The team working on the road throughout the evening and into the early hours of Saturday morning managed to get the road completed and ready to open by 03:00.
In response to frustrations vented on social media on Friday over the closure of the M6 Joe said “We apologise for the disruption and inconvenience for all you drivers that were affected by this incident.”
“Hopefully you can see the efforts all parties had to put into this unfortunate circumstance and understand that there’s a huge amount of work involved and different industries that are needed for a job of this calibre.”
“massive thanks to all involved for a cracking result and a safe and quick turnaround to get the motorway moving again.”
The Chair of Clifton Community Council were the accident occurred on the section of the M6 bringing the village to a standstill as the A6 through Clifton became the detour route for M6, thanked all those involved in reopening the M6. He said “Clifton has seen its fair share of road resurfacing in recent years as well as bumper to bumper traffic as three lanes of M6 traffic is diverted along the single lane of the A6. But Friday was on another level. The hard work and amazing task undertaken by Dinsdale Contractors and the team they assembled in such a short timeframe is truly appreciated and respected.”
photos supplied by Joe Dinsdale.
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