A firm at Chatham docks is creating Crossrail jobs

by business editor Trevor Sturgess

More than 120 Crossrail jobs have been created in Medway.

A factory in Chatham Docks is producing 110,000 concrete segments to line the multi-billion pound project’s eastern tunnels.

The segments are transported from Chatham to Limmo Peninsula, near Canning Town, by barge.

Each 50 metre long 1,200 tonne barge can deliver around 320 tunnel segments, the equivalent of 40 lorry loads.

The Chatham facility began operation last year and is now working round the clock manufacturing more than 300 concrete tunnel segments a day.

Eight segments form a complete tunnel ring and the Chatham plant has so far produced more than 2,200 rings.

The segments line 8.3km of new tunnels forming the eastern section of the Crossrail route.

Two huge tunnel boring machines, (TBM) Elizabeth and Victoria, are burrowing their way from the Limmo site towards Farringdon in central London.

As the 150 metre-long TBMs advance forward, the precast concrete segments are formed into rings to line the tunnels behind the TBM cutter head.

Bill Tucker, Crossrail’s Central area director, said: “The Chatham factory is playing a crucial role in the delivery of Crossrail, supplying 110,000 segments to line the new tunnels being built in London.

"By creating new jobs for local people, the Chatham factory set up by our contractor Dragados Sisk Joint Venture (DSJV) is ensuring the economic benefits of Crossrail spread well beyond the capital.

"With a number of UK tunnelling projects in the pipeline, we hope this manufacturing facility will help contribute towards a lasting skills legacy beyond Crossrail.”

Crossrail and its contractors are working with job centres and Rochester-based construction hire firm Cheema to provide workers for the Chatham factory, including general operatives, crane drivers, concrete finishers, and forklift drivers.

Brett Concrete, part of the Canterbury-based Brett Group, has supplied around 25,000 cubic metres of concrete to the Chatham plant, creating six jobs.

And Medway Ports, part of the Peel Ports Group that owns Chatham Docks, is benefiting from some 340 barge movements.

Chatham is one of two major concrete segment factories manufacturing pre-cast concrete segments to line a total of 42 kilometres of tunnels under London.

A second is at Old Oak Common in West London.