Machinery On Site Of Road Tunnel Building

Press, Volume CII, Issue 30093, 29 March 1963, Page 13

Machinery On Site Of Road Tunnel Building

Two days after the Christ-church-Lyttelton Road Tunnel Authority let a £184,532 contract for the administration building and toll plaza at the tunnel's Heathcote portal, earth-moving machinery moved on to the site yesterday to excavate for the building and shift a mass of rock and rubble. The building will straddle a gully which has been partly filled by rock and rubble from the tunnel. It will be supported by bulb piling. The contract calls for the moving of about 12,000 cubic yards, and this work is being done by Blogg Brothers, Ltd., as sub-contractors to John

Calder, Ltd., which is to erect the building. Some of the heavy machinery which will move the earth and rocks went to the Site yesterday, and preliminary investigations have been made. Preliminary tidying of the site will begin today, and within a week the rough site should be ready for the building contractor to begin. For the building itself about 4800 cubic yards will have to be moved. The first stage of the earthmoving work is to prepare the site for bulb piling. At the bottom of toe gully is a stream, which has to be moved 30ft closer to the road tunnel motorway. Eventually the gully and the building site will be landscaped to make the area a garden surround for the building.