This is the UK's the first carbon neutral road scheme which was successfully delivered by AEY as Principal Contractor through our Construction Works Framework (CWF) with Highways England (now National Highways) and other specialist CWF Partners. This road improvement project included full depth carriageway reconstruction and resurfacing of 6.5km of both the East and Westbound carriageways of the A590 trunk road between M6 J36 and Kendal, along with the roundabout at J36 with associated kerbing and drainage renewals. The scheme formed part of the estimated £8M A590 scheme designed with a low carbon strategy to ensure safer, smoother journeys for road users on this heavily trafficked vital route in Southern Cumbria. The carriageway surface had come to the end of its life with dangerous potholes and uneven surfacing posing a real safety risk for drivers.

We worked in collaboration with CWF Surfacing Specialist, Aggregate Industries, and HE designers AMEY during the Early Contractor Involvement (ECI) stage over 18 months before the contract began to investigate alternative materials to help achieve the highly ambitious carbon reduction targets set for the scheme. The proposed solution was to use AI’s innovative Foamix material. The pavement design proposal meant that the planed out structural layers of the existing road surface could be recycled and encapsulated back into the pavement by producing an ex-situ cold recycled asphalt which, when combined with the use of Aggregate Industries’ SuperLow asphalt helped to achieve a carbon neutral pavement construction.

We constructed a on-site processing and batching plant within the site compound to which all road planings were taken meaning no material was disposed of off-site. The planings were processed to produce over 1000T of Foamix per shift working 24/7 across two shifts to ensure disruption to the travelling public was minimised. This methodology removed HGV movements and waste disposal costs compared to conventional surfacing. 50,000T of planings produced 38,887T of recycled surfacing material in six weeks. 120T of planings were donated to a local charity to surface the Hincaster Trailway multi-user path with the remaining 10,993T delivered to AEY’s other A590 site at Cross-a-Moor Roundabout Ulverston.

The project won three individual awards at the Highways Awards 2021:
• Overall Special Merit Award
• Environmental Sustainability in the Highways Sector Award
• Winner: Project of the Year Award (Over £5m)