Fillmaster was chosen to upgrade the Hoole Road Bridge in Chester. Originally built in the 1880s, the 15 brick pier road bridge was designed to take a maximum load of only 7.5 tonnes and was therefore unable to cope with modern traffic loading.

Cheshire City Council, the client on this project, faced several issues, the first of which was a weakness in the underlying soil on three of the pier sections. This meant that a concrete block structure could only be used in two out of the five arches that needed strengthening.

The ground on the three sections of the bridge that used Fillmaster were capped off using a concrete base and the walls lined with a mortar based system, before the whole structure was waterproofed. Fillmaster was then positioned on the concrete base and built up to the level of the horizontal sections that supported the road.

The load bearing properties of Fillmaster meant that the new structure provided the necessary support to the road. The transfer of the load from the bridge was done using a special resin between the top of the Fillmaster and underside of the bridge structure.

Once the Fillmaster was in place, a block structure was used to create the end caps to each pier section, before finally finishing with a more decorative brick outer wall.

Client: Network Rail
Consulting Engineer: Cheshire Engineering Consultancy
Contractor: APB Group Ltd
Volume: 908m³