New footage has been released showing a year in the life of the Queensferry Crossing.
The video shows the highlights from the past 12 months of the building work taking place on the bridge, which is still on target to open next May.
The £1.3 billion project is now 94% complete with visible progress being made in 2016.
Some of the key achievements from the past 12 months include:
- 200 stay cables installed, measuring a total of 50km which would stretch all the way from the bridge to St Andrews if laid end to end;
- The bridge deck now largely complete with only two lifts remaining early in 2017;
- 83 deck sections lifted into place, weighing more than 60,000 tonnes in total;
- Three of four gaps in the deck closed, with only two deck units remaining to be lifted before the final closure early in 2017;
- North viaduct fully launched – the 221 metre, 6,000 tonne structure was pulled out over two piers at a careful speed of up to six metres an hour, taking just over four weeks to complete;
- On the south deck fan two technically challenging over pier deck lifts have been completed;
- On the road network 3.5km of road surface and 8km of drainage pipes have been laid, 11,500 square metres of waterproofing spray applied, 14 overhead gantries erected and 44,000 trees planted;
- The project continues to capture the public’s imagination with around 7,000 school pupils from all over Scotland visiting and more than 8,000 people viewing the project exhibition, listening to presentations and visiting the site in 2016.
Economy Secretary Keith Brown said: “The Queensferry Crossing is now nearing completion and is on schedule to open in May next year.
“On the bridge there is continuous deck from the north viaduct in Fife to just a few metres short of the south viaduct in the Lothians.”
When work resumes at the beginning of January the initial focus will be on completing the final few concrete pours to complete the deck of the south viaduct.
Then focus will shift to a new phase of finishing touches including water proofing, road surfacing and the final fit out of the mechanical and electrical systems.
“The challenge the project faces with the weather have been well documented but it is to the enormous credit of the skilled and dedicated team that the project remains on schedule to open within the original contractual timeframe and significantly under budget,” Mr Brown added.
“And, of course, no one ever said building the tallest bridge in Britain in such a challenging environment was going to be easy.”
Once opened, he said users can look forward to significant improvements to the trunk road network.
Meanwhile, the Forth Road Bridge will be retained as a public transport corridor.
