The contract was awarded to A. F. Budge Contractors Ltd in the tender sum of £4.442 million and commenced on the 5^th July 1976.

The Works consisted of the construction of approximately 2.1km of the M180 Motorway from the River Trent eastwards, 1.5km being dual 3-lane motorway and 0.5km being dual 2-lane motorway. Additionally approximately 4.1km of the M181 dual 2-way motorway northwards from the Midmoor Interchange, and approximately 1.7km of connecting roads and slip roads in the interchange were constructed.

The main earthworks and pre-earthworks drainage from the River Trent eastwards for approximately 1km were constructed as part of the Advance Earthworks Contract already described.

The motorway was formed on embankment throughout with a height maintained at approximately 2 metres minimum above original ground level. On completion a total of 600,000 cu. m of fill was imported. Of this approximately 100,000 cu. m of slag waste rock fill was incorporated as a granular drainage blanket at the base of the embankments forming M180 and Midmoor Interchange. A further 120,000 cu. m of P.F.A. was used to construct the higher fills carrying the M181 link over the M180. The remainder was sand fill from borrow pits adjacent to the motorway.

Throughout the Contract length the motorway crosses over flat agricultural land which is generally 1 to 3 m above O D and consists of superficial aeolin, alluvial and marine deposits over-lying Keuper Marl of the Triassic System. The superficial deposits are blown sand, silty clays, silts, peat and sand gravels up to 18 m in depth.

The Advanced Earthworks embankment on the eastern approach to the River Trent was constructed early in order to obtain the majority of settlement prior to carriageway construction. Additionally the higher fills in Midmoor Interchange stood for 40 weeks prior to commencement of carriageway construction.

Carriageway and embankment drainage is picked up by side ditches on both sides of the motorway and intersected by culverts. Because of the increased run off which resulted from the paved motorway it was necessary to improve sections of the local drainage system and this was carried out by the appropriate Internal Drainage Board.

The Contractor elected to provide a flexible free edge pavement with in situ concrete drainage channel. The surfacings consist of 200 mm of granular sub-base substitute, 150 mm of sub-base, 210 mm of lean concrete road base, 105, 120 or 140 mm (depending on location) of dense tarmacadam followed by 40 mm of rolled asphalt wearing course.

A central reserve barrier was erected throughout.

All bridges are founded on piles driven to the underlying Keuper Marl. It was originally envisaged, because of the difficulties of piling through granular deposits, that steel H-piles would be the most economic solution. However the Contractor proposed the use of a pre-cast concrete alternative system which was successfully substituted.

Midmoor Bridge carries the M181 over the M180 motorway on a two span bridge. The reinforced concrete abutments and piers support decks of pretensioned prestressed M-beams with in situ reinforced concrete deck slabs.

Of similar construction over the M181 Burringham Road Bridge carries the B1450, Brumy Common Lane Bridge carries an unclassified road on a similar four span bridge, but having reinforced concrete skeleton abutments, and White House Farm and Grange Farm Bridges carry farm accommodation roads on 3 span identical bridges, having similar decks.

The design and supervision of construction of the M180 contracts so far described were undertaken by the West Riding (later West Yorkshire) Sub-Unit. The Contract was completed in December 1978.

There had been continuous pressure by local interests to speed up the programme for completion of the whole of the M180 from Thorne to Immingham/Grimsby. The section from Thorne to the Woodhouse Interchange on the A161 was then open to traffic, as was the M180 Brigg By-pass from the A18/A15 junction at Castlethorpe west of Brigg to the Elsham Interchange.

The Scunthorpe Southern By-pass which followed, commences to the east of Midmoor Interchange and connects with the Brigg By-pass at Castlethorpe. Links into Scunthorpe are formed by Midmoor Interchange and the M181 from the West, and Ermine Street Interchange and the A18 from the east.

The 13.9km by-pass is carried in an easterly direction on a shallow fill over the River Trent Flood Plain. Both Moor Road and Scotter Road are taken over the motorway. The motorway crosses Pottesford Beck, (which has been diverted under the motorway and Scotter Road in reinforced concrete twin box culverts) and then enters an 11 metre deep cut at Northfield Road (A159), taken over the motorway.

The motorway crosses a tributary of Pottesford Beck on high embankment and enters a shallow cut near Aspen Farm, before Holme Lane, which is carried over the motorway.

Crossing the plain to the south of Holme on shallow fill, over two 24 in. high pressure grid gas mains, the motorway passes into shallow cut adjacent to Top Farm, crosses the B1398 at ground level before going into an 11 m deep cut at Lincoln Edge. Twigmoor Lane is diverted to join the re-aligned B1398 which is taken over the motorway.

Further low embankment takes the motorway into a 7 m cut to cross Ermine Street. A 0.25km dual carriageway connects an elevated interchange to a new roundabout at the A18/Ermine Street cross roads. There is a provision at the interchange for a new link to connect the A15 south of Radbourne via a re-alignment to the M180.

Low embankment close to Braken Hill Farm, crosses Vicarage Road (B1207) which is taken over the motorway, then in shallow cut the motorway skirts Pond Head Wood, through the Broughton Lane Plantation, crossing the A18 and B1208. The A18 trunk road is carried over the motorway at a large skew and the B1208 also is carried over the motorway. The motorway on low embankment joins the Brigg By-pass to the west of the River Ancholme.

Two balancing reservoirs have been constructed to take the surface water run-off from the carriageways and discharge it slowly into the existing land drainage systems.

From west of Scotter Road to Ermine Street Interchange the motorway has dual two-lane carriageways and from Ermine Street to Castlethorpe dual three-lane carriageways. 6.4km of side roads have been constructed. The £13.5 million contract for the M180 Scunthorpe By-pass was awarded to the Balfour Beatty-Clugston, Joint Venture.

The works, which started on the 8^th November 1976, involved 1.5 million cu. m of earthworks, 167,000 cu. m of sub-base, and 420,000 sq. m of surfacing.

Of the twelve bridges, nine have reinforced concrete decks on I-beams with hexagonal column piers, two have U-shaped beam decks with top slabs and reinforced concrete abutments, the spans of the bridges vary between 16 and 30 metres.

The A18 Springfield Bridge, with a span of 45m, has an in situ reinforced concrete post-tensioned box section deck, supplied on reinforced concrete abutments and having a 48 sided central column support.

The Bottesford Beck and Scotter road culverts are 80m and 45m long respectively. Drainage involved 50 piped culverts.

The contract was completed in the November 1978.

Brigg is a small market town (population 5,300) in North Lincolnshire. Its full name Glanford Brigg derives from the towns location at the crossing of the Ancholme. Prior to the construction of the New River Ancholme and major drainage works in the 1630's the Ancholme valley or level was a marshy swamp and would have reverted to such condition had it not been for the drainage improvement works carried out under John Rennie and his son between 1800 and 1844. The construction of dykes and a system of low level catchwater drainage channels with sluices and locks at Ferriby on the South bank of the Humber greatly improved the drainage and reduce flooding in times of heavy rainfall. Following the Land Drainage Act 1930 further improvements were carried out including the provision of pumped drainage of the low level system administered under the Ancholme Internal Drainage Board.

The Doncaster - Immingham / Grimsby trunk road A18 carrying very heavy traffic passed through the centre of the town's Market Place and shopping streets. The narrow Wrawby and Bigby Streets had been made one-way. Traffic included a high proportion of heavy goods vehicles with oil and chemical industry tankers from the oil refinery at South Killingholme.

Plans for a trunk road by-pass of Brigg dated back to the early 1930's but it took the massive explosion at the chemical plant at Flixborough near Scunthorpe in 1974 to prompt urgency for the town to be by-passed. Political pressure resulted in an earlier start to the South Humberside Motorway.

Tender documents were hurriedly prepared to achieve a contract commencement as soon as possible in the spring of 1975. Further site geotechnical investigations were carried out and these revealed the need for design reconsiderations. The original design preparation by Lindsey County Council had by then been passed on to the newly formed Humberside County Council. At the beginning of 1975 Scott Wilson Kirkpatrick and Partners who were already appointed Consultants for the design of the South Humberside Motorway to the East and West of the Brigg By-pass section, and had carried out a Transportation Study for Humberside were invited to take over the design responsibility and supervise the construction of the Brigg By-pass."

Design changes were made to several of the eight bridge structures and slope stability changes were necessary to both Elsham and Wrawby cuttings. Also the approach embankments to the New River Ancholme Bridge were changed to use lightweight fill material (PFA and Cement Works flue ash), constructed in stages at controlled rates of fill. These embankments were also surcharged in order to increase the rate of settlement.

These late changes necessitated the negotiation for the acquisition of some additional land not included in the original compulsory purchase orders. These negotiations were completed in 4 weeks preceding the commencement of the 27 month contract on 2^nd May 1975.

The £9.25 million Contract for the 7.37km by-pass was awarded to Sir Alfred McAlpine & Co.

It was originally intended that a 2 level roundabout interchange would be constructed at Scawby Brook with a link southwards to the A15 Lincoln road and that this would form the Western end of Brigg By-pass. However, a decision to re-route the A15 along the line of Ermine Street by-passing Redbourne and Hibaldstow was pending so Brigg By-pass western end was made 500 metres west of New River Ancholme Bridge and temporary link road to the A18 was provided.

This reduced the length of the dual 3 way motorway to 4.5 miles with the 2 level roundabout junction, A15 North link road to the Humber Bridge, at the Eastern end of the by-pass.

A confirmatory geotechnical investigation was carried out at the beginning of the contract and instrumentation was installed in the settlement areas east and west of the New River Ancholme. Horizontal and vertical movement gauges and piezometeres were monitored throughout the construction of the staged controlled rate embankment construction. All this geotechnical work was carried under the supervision of Bob Alderslade, materials technician, who was also in charge of the site laboratory.

Embankments were constructed on a 450mm thick drainage layer of crushed rock to assist relief of pore water pressures. It was found that the very hard chalk material from Elsham quarry was suitable for drainage and capping layers under the pavement construction, effecting a substantial cost saving to the contract.

The Oxford Clays in Wrawby cutting required 1 in 6 slopes for stability and where this slope could not be achieved because of existing housing development countefort drains were provided.

The cutting slopes at Elsham cutting and the A15 Interchange slip roads were stabilised by chalk fill material.

Eight bridges were constructed, the new River Ancholme Bridge, a 3 span structure, being the largest with its centre span crossing the navigable river channel. Steel H-section piled foundations were provided at the Rivers bridge, 3 road overbridges and the railway underbridge at Elsham.

It is noteworthy that one of the country's first Badger tunnels under a motorway was provided beneath the embankment at Elsham woods. A Badger bridge was also provided at a diverted watercourse!

The Brigg By-pass was officially opened on Friday 2^nd September 1977 by John Horan, Parliamentary Under Secretary of State for Transport. The by-pass brought welcome relief to the market town of Brigg which has suffered congestion for many years because of heavy industrial traffic through the town centre, and this opening marks the first stage in the completion of the 42km long M180 South Humberside motorway.

Although not a motorway bridge, no story of the strategic motorway system in the North East would be complete without some record of the Humber Bridge. When constructed in 1981 with a main span of 1,410 metres it held the record for the longest span suspension bridge in the world until overtaken by the Japanese.

The bridge which links the M180 with the M62 via the A15 and A63 Trunk roads resulted from studies by Freeman Fox & Partners the first in 1935, the second in 1955 and the promotion of a parliamentary bill in 1958 by the Kingston upon Hull Corporation. The Humber Bridge Acts of 1959-1973 gave powers to the Humber Bridge Board to construct, operate and maintain the bridge and acquire the necessary land and finance for its building and to take tolls for its use.

In 1969 the Government produced a report entitled "Humberside - A Feasibility Study" which recommended that the bridge should be built to enable the Humberside region to develop in the 1980's and induce commercial and industrial expansion.

In 1971 the government decided to lend the finance for the project to the Humber Bridge Board following which Freeman Fox & Partners were instructed to proceed with the design work.

The bridge has many innovatory features and the superstructure follows closely the concept first used for the Severn Bridge completed in 1966. An unusual feature, which resulted from topographical and geological considerations, in the inequality in length of the side spans; 280 metres at the north end and 530 metres at the south.

The contract for construction was awarded to a consortium of companies, British Bridge Builders comprising of Sir William Arrol, Cleveland Bridge and Engineering, Redpath Dorman Long and John Howard and Company. Construction was not without it's difficulties in dealing with the wrath of the Humber, the elements, and problems with steelworkers endemic in the industry at the time.

The Humber Bridge was opened by Her Majesty the Queen on the 17^th July 1981.