SHETLAND Islands Council is calling upon its 380+-strong plant fleet to complete £1.3 million of vital improvement works at Tingwall Airport near the village of Gott.
The airport is an important hub for inter-island flights, offering routes to the likes of Foula and Fair Isle. There is a pressing need to improve the integrity of the airport’s runway, which has deteriorated in recent years, resulting in an increasing need for maintenance.
The local authority’s road asset and network management team will undertake resurfacing works, which are anticipated to last around a month. Key to successful delivery of this initiative – and others in the region – is the council’s self-sufficiency, which executive manager of roads, Neil Hutcheson, told Project Plant is vital ‘in all walks of life’ in Shetland. The works will be carried out largely by local authority staff and machinery.
The council’s fleet management team has received a number of awards, including an Association for Public Service Excellence (APSE) accolade for Most Improved Performer – Transport Operations & Vehicle Maintenance at the 2023 APSE Performance Networks Awards.
The project at Tingwall Airport doesn’t require any cold milling or planing. Instead, just a regulating layer of a nominal depth of 60ml with a 40ml wearing course on top will suffice. The council has conducted tests on a section of recently resurfaced Class A road to ensure the new airport specs pass the Civil Aviation Authority’s (CAA) skid test.
The council will call upon its Dynapac SD2500W wheeled paver, which boasts a V500 screed and can pave widths up to 7.3m and features revised hydraulics offering fuel efficiency and a slightly smaller engine size.
Two Dynapac CC7200 tandem rollers will also be utilised – with one hired in from Cambuslang-based Clee Hill Plant. With an operating weight of almost 17-tonnes, the machine is designed to aid major projects through its ‘highly-efficient’ compaction.
“We went through a tendering exercise five years ago and Dynapac did stand out for the quality side of things,” Neil told Project Plant. “Our foreman was impressed with it (the SD2500W), and we’ve been happy with it since we’ve had it.”
The plant fleet also includes JCB wheeled excavators, ‘a lot’ of pickups, smaller plant, eight-wheeled HGVs, cold milling machines, spray tankers, pneumatic rollers, and the island’s only batching plant at the council-owned Scord Quarry, where around 3,500 tonnes of asphalt will be sourced from.
“It’s maybe unusual for a local authority to have so much in-house, but we find it to be more cost-effective to actually purchase our own plant than to hire,” Neil added, before telling of the vast council garage used to house and maintain the machinery.
With the Shetland construction market booming, Neil explained that much of the island’s contractors are being utilised on the plethora of ongoing renewable projects, meaning it could have been tricky had the local authority not had extensive in-house capabilities – particularly given the cost of contracting specialists from the mainland.
“We’re at the end of the line as far as supply goes,” Neil continued. “We find the works we do in-house are significantly less expensive than when we get contractors hired in, especially if it’s something specialist and they’re having to come from the mainland.”
Work is currently progressing well on the Tingwall Airport project, and it is expected to be completed on schedule by the end of May. The only possible hitch could be the transport of the asphalt, but Neil stressed there are plenty of good contractors on the island to call upon should issues crop up including EMN Plant, Tulloch Developments, and CW Johnson Plant.
