Network Rail has launched a £93m, multi-lot design-and-build framework for rock cutting remediation and associated geotechnical works across its Wales (£40.8m) and Western (£36.8m) regions. The three-year framework, extendable by up to two years, covers investigation, design, construction and handback for rock cut stabilisation, earthwork drainage upgrades and burrowing management on operational rail corridors. Contractors will act as Principal Contractor and, where required, Principal Designer, with separate appointments planned for each region but the option to bid for both.

Devon County Council has let a £1.29M contract, including VAT, for highway stabilisation works at the A377 Weirmarsh slip, a known failure point on this key Barnstaple–Exeter route. The scheme is expected to involve ground stabilisation and slope support to address ongoing embankment movement affecting the carriageway formation. Contractors and designers will need to manage works under live traffic on a constrained rural corridor, with careful control of groundwater and temporary works to maintain slope stability during construction.

Slope stabilisation case studies from Aarsleff Ground Engineering show driven steel sheet piles, a 10 m-deep contiguous piled wall and soil nails being tailored to constrained brownfield and heritage sites in Alnwick, Tynemouth and Northampton. Solutions include 57.6 m and 20 m sheet-piled retaining walls installed with silent press and Movax to protect listed masonry, a 300 mm-diameter contiguous wall with 3 m rock bolts, gabions and 25 m² carved shotcrete for a 120-year cliff design life, and 8 m R32 hollow-bar soil nails designed via 3D clash modelling around buried services.