North Kent regeneration plans benefit project waste

摘要

Transportation of waste from tunnelling at Crossrail's Royal Oak portal is to be improved following restoration of a rail freight line by Lafarge Cement in north Kent. Balfour Beatty Rail is carrying out design and build work on the new 2.25km link, which will reconnect rail freight facilities at Lafarge's former cement works at Northfleet to the main north Kent line. The new line will enable Crossrail waste to be transferred from the rail network and onto river transport for final disposal at Wallasea Island in Essex. The work is being carried out as part of the overall regeneration of the Northfleet site and is expected to be completed in February next year ahead of the start of tunnelling at Paddington. Mitchell said transportation of waste by rail was a key part of the logistics plan for the project. "All the London Clay excavated by the TBMs will be transferred from site by rail and then taken by boat to Wallasea where it will be used to build a new wildlife reserve," he said. The island will be used to dispose of 4.5Mt of waste from the project, which will create a new 607ha nature reserve for the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds. Crossrail has said that this work will create one of the largest new wetland reserves in Europe for 50 years.