IN Brief:
- Winvic is designing resilience works for the A68 crossing of the River Wear in County Durham.
- River realignment has caused erosion, localised undercutting, and damage around the southern pier and embankment.
- Detailed surveys and hydraulic modelling will determine the eventual structural repair and scour-protection package.
Winvic Construction has begun design work for resilience measures at Witton-le-Wear Bridge in County Durham, where riverbank erosion and localised undercutting have damaged the southern approach to the A68 crossing.
The contractor is acting as design-and-build contractor for Durham County Council and is working with Mott MacDonald on the scheme. Design work is scheduled to continue through to summer 2027 before the council selects the permanent repair and scour-protection solution.
The bridge carries the A68 over the River Wear near Witton-le-Wear and was built around 1970. Its main structure comprises two arched, tapered in-situ reinforced-concrete beams supporting a reinforced-concrete slab deck.
The current problem is concentrated around the riverbanks and southern embankment close to one of the bridge piers. An upstream gravel bank has altered the river alignment, contributing to erosion, localised undercutting, and damage to the paved apron around the structure. The northern pier and embankment are also being assessed.
Winvic’s commission will develop options for structural refurbishment or replacement work, scour protection, and measures to stabilise the southern embankment upstream of the bridge. Detailed river modelling, durability assessments, surveys, and cost analysis will be used to determine the recommended intervention.
Repairing the visible damage without addressing the hydraulic cause would leave the asset exposed to the same mechanism during future high-flow events. Scour protection therefore has to account for the way water is being redirected around the crossing, including the position of the gravel bank, flow velocities, bed conditions, bank geometry, and the bridge foundations.
Those factors make the design phase more than a conventional concrete-repair exercise. A localised intervention around one pier can alter flow elsewhere, while hard protection installed in the wrong location can shift erosion downstream or towards another part of the structure.
The council’s decision to separate investigation and design from the final construction package gives the team time to establish the condition of the bridge and the river environment before fixing the scope. The design and repair commission was awarded at £471,682, while the eventual construction cost remains to be determined.
That approach also allows buildability to be tested alongside the permanent design. Working beside a live watercourse introduces temporary-works requirements, flood risk, environmental controls, restricted access, and seasonal constraints that can materially affect the cost of otherwise straightforward structural repairs.
Access is likely to influence the final method. Repairing a pier, apron, or embankment immediately beside the River Wear may require working platforms, temporary retaining measures, lifting equipment, or in-channel operations, while the A68 remains an important regional road connection.
Traffic management will have to be developed around the structural work rather than treated as a separate package. Any lane restrictions or closures affect journeys and freight movements along the route, while the contractor still needs enough working space to move plant, materials, and temporary works safely around the bridge.
Mott MacDonald’s involvement places hydraulic, geotechnical, and structural design alongside Winvic’s delivery planning. The arrangement should allow proposed solutions to be assessed against practical issues such as sequencing, access, plant requirements, temporary stability, and environmental permitting before the council commits to construction.
The commission is Winvic’s first scheme secured through the North East Procurement Organisation framework. The framework provides the procurement route, but the technical scope remains specific to the bridge and will depend on what the investigations reveal about erosion, structural condition, and the durability of existing components.
The existing paved apron already shows that previous protection around the crossing has been affected by the changing river. Establishing whether the damage is confined to surface protection or extends to foundations and adjacent structural elements will be one of the more consequential parts of the survey programme.
Monitoring of the northern side adds another variable. If deterioration or scour is found there, the final package could extend beyond the southern embankment that triggered the current work, changing the construction sequence and the amount of temporary access required around the structure.
Design completion is currently set for summer 2027, giving Durham County Council a defined point at which it should have comparative options for the permanent works. Until the modelling and condition information are complete, the repair method, construction value, and detailed programme remain open.
The engineering objective is narrower and more demanding than simply restoring damaged concrete or reinstating an eroded bank. The chosen scheme has to stabilise the crossing against an active river process, because a repair that leaves the flow mechanism unchanged would only postpone the next intervention.
