Felixstowe South Reconfiguration
| Client | Felixstowe Dock & Railway Co. | Main Contractor | Costain Ltd |
| Value | £54m | Location | Felixstowe, Suffolk |
| Contract | FIDIC | Date | May 2008 – September 2010 |
Project Information
Capital dredging and filling works for new quay development (Previously known as Landguard Redevelopment). Phase 1 of the reconfiguration programme consists of: 730 m new deep water quay and 200,000m2 container handling area achieved by installing new quay in front of old Landguard port structures and redevelopment of the old Landguard terminal.
Work for WDC included dredging approximately 6.1 million cubic metres consisting of:
- Dredging of silts and soft clays within reclamation terminal footprint (approx. 750,000m3)
- Reclamation works to fill the area between the present quay and future quay wall including former Felixstowe Dock Basin (approx. 3,000,000m3 including 500,000m3 re-use material from channel widening).
- Dredging/widening of western section of the approach channel (2,000,000m3 including 500,000m3 re-use material).
- Dredging of deep water berth pocket in front of the new quay wall (3,000,000m3).
- Dredging of future tug berth pockets (50,000m3).
For stability reasons it was decided that all unsuitable materials had to be removed from the entire reclamation footprint prior to placement of any fill material. This activity was undertaken by small to medium size trailer dredgers including the Sospan, Medway II, Cornelia and Barent Zanen. After the bulk of the material had been dredged, the purpose built water injection vessel Norma came into operation to remove the final layer of unsuitable material and to maintain the reclamation footprint clear of silts until the first layer of material placement had been completed..
After removal of all unsuitable material the reclamation works started. The reclamation was built up in various stages from a seabed level of approx. -12m CD to a nominal level of + 6.0m CD. In the early stages of bund construction around the reclamation perimeter, material was placed by Medium trailer dredger using the bottom dumping method, however the majority of the bunds were placed by the trailer dredgers discharging material through a spreader pontoon. In this way material was placed in thin layers to an accurate design profile. The vessels Crestway and Barent Zanen were involved in this operation. All sand for this operation was imported from Offshore licensed dredging areas.
As soon as the reclamation level reached the Low water tide level, the spreader pontoon was replaced by shore pipelines and dry plant to continue the reclamation process.
For the onshore reclamation it was the aim to re-use part (500,000m3) of the material that had to be dredged from the Channel Widening. Each load dredged from the channel widening was sampled and the quality of the dredge material assessed before it was accepted for reclamation. If the material was rejected for reclamation it was dumped at offshore disposal grounds. For this operation, medium size trailer dredgers Shoreway, Crestway, and Barent Zanen were deployed.
Apart from sand, the widening material consisted of Stiff Clay, rock slabs and boulders. Part of this material could still be dredged by trailer dredgers with special dragheads engineered for the project, but the majority of material had to be removed by Backhoe dredgers. The same applied to the berth pockets.
The design of the project including various stages of the dredging and reclamation works as well as the sequencing of the quay wall installation ensured stability and secure work area throughout the project and resulted in a successful product for the end users delivered on time.