Ferrybridge Lighting Towers Decommissioning - May 2020

Описание: The lighting towers were utilised to keep the coal field illuminated, allowing the station to load its boilers so the station could operate 24hrs a day.

Whilst not the most challenging scope of works on site, access to the towers was restricted by the existing poor ground conditions due to the coal field area being prone to flooding.

The towers could also be clearly seen from the A1 motorway, and as such the most challenging aspect was not the work itself, but the risks to drivers on the A1 with the potential of them being distracted by the towers being brought down.

The simple solution to this was to undertake the works during the hours of darkness. However, this in turn added a potential risk to the workforce and as such the associated risks needed to be assessed.

During the initial COVID-19 lockdown the site team looked at ways of maintaining production on site, whist keeping everyone safe by social distancing as far as reasonably practicable.

With the towers being a satellite section of the main works, the downturn in traffic on the A1 and the need to separate the workforce, the site team realised that this was the perfect opportunity to bring the removal of the towers forward.

This section of the works were completed ahead of programme. Taking this activity off the back-end of the programme has helped, in some small part, towards forming and enforcing COVID-19 mitigation measures which could then be applied to the overall programme.

The works were carried out during a spell of good weather, alleviating the potential flooding issue and keeping the team operating safely and productively, during the initial COVID-19 learning curve