I can't think there'll be many people who've not had to endure the roadworks at the southern end of the M1, where for around two years the section of motorway between junctions 6a-10 have been widened. Thanks to The Sun, we can report a load of facts relating to the largest road-widening scheme of the past decade that was completed on schedule on Friday 19 December.
- The total cost of the scheme came to £300 million, which equates to £200-per-minute or £473-per-inch
- The total estimation of motorist journeys disrupted is 160,000,000
- A total of 23,500 traffic cones were used
- An overturned lorry contributed 20 tonnes of pork when it overturned during the roadworks
- There was 1 joint contractor: Balfour Beatty/Skanska, who provided 98 sub-contractors (all British), who in turn provided up to 560 workers at any one time
- The total number of vehicles recovered by the contracted recovery specialist, Saunders Garages breakdown services, was 17,203 - including a 100-tonne mobile crane
- 18 specialist recovery vehicles were operating 24 hours-a-day, 7 days-a-week
- The project netter 10 awards, including the Considerate Contractors Silver Award
- A total of 1.5 million hours was the lengthiest period worked without a reportable accident on the site
- 4,401 incidents were reported to the Police, of which 901 were minor or damage-only crashes, 37 were serious injuries and there were no fatalities
- 1,500 high-hisiability jackets were issued, 1,350 hard hats and 650 shovels were used
- The average daily workforce totalled 400 (even if it may not have seemed to have been anywhere near that figure when I've passed)
- An estimated 840,000 were consumed, during three refreshment breaks each day
- There were 8 attacks of criminal damage
- 40mph was the maximum speed that could be legally driven during most of the works for much of the time, though this was increased to 50mph towards the end of the project
- 10 new bridges were installed
- 62 gantries were installed
- 45 bat boxes were installed to re-house the disturbed mammalian aviators, including Nyctalus noctula and Pipistrellus pipistrellus; 100 bird boxes were also installed
- A total of 190,000 trees were planted, plus 120,000 shrubs, 60,000 bulbs (including 2,000 native English Bluebells) and 43,000aquatic plants in and around overflow ponds
- A total of 10,763,910 sq ft of landscaping took place
- 3,000,000 cubic feet of concrete was used - enough to fill 29,000 Olympic swimming pools
- 516,700 tonnes of asphalt was used - weighing the same as 4.5 million Sumo wrestlers; a total of 423,200 tonnes of capping (the layer below the road surface) was used; along with152,600 tonnes of sub-base material
- 70,000 temporary cats eyes were used, along with 6,000 new ones
- A total of 49 light-up Variable Message Signs were used
- 1,960 temporary signs were used, plus 430 permanent - 50 of them on gantries and 380 on poles
- 2 domestic incidents were reported to Police, one of which saw a woman abandoned on the hard-shoulder after an argument with her husband
- £2.12 million was the total estimated income generated from motorists' speeding fines
- The total number of motorists caught by the average speed cameras came to 35,297.
