Crawley town centre improvements

VolkerFitzpatrick's project has enabled West Sussex County council to reduce congestion in the town centre. The project  included the enhancement of pedestrian and cycling facilities which has encourage sustainable travel. The street scene has also been improved by “decluttering” the highway to enhance the town centre’s visual appearance and using high-quality paving and landscape planting.

As well as designing the layout of the project to ensure vital, underground utility and drainage systems remain unaffected by the works, VolkerFitzpatrick constructed new, 1.8m wide cycle lanes, as well as upgraded the existing footways using a mix of block and asphalt paving. New pedestrian crossing facilities have been introduced and the traffic signals and two major junctions have been upgraded, all whilst keeping access safely open to both pedestrian and traffic users.

To keep disruption to a minimum, the works were carried out in several phases and resurfacing works on the project were carried out at night. The upgrades have not only improved junction efficiency but have alsodrastically reduced congestion in the town.

The infrastructure work is part of the exciting new £60m Crawley Growth Programme in the heart of Crawley town centre, which will ‘unlock’ jobs, business space and home building in the town and provide an additional 135,000sqm of commercial space across the borough.

Community Engagement

The total Social Value spend on contracts awarded to local business and spend on local materials, plant and labour in the area amounted to almost £2.5 million, 35% of the contract value compared to an industry average of 10%.