ENGINEERS strengthening Edinburgh's two Haymarket railway tunnels in preparation for a major regeneration project have released the first images of the underground works.
A team of up to 40 specialists is working through the night over 14 months to carry out the job, which is claimed will ensure there is no disruption to rail services on one of Scotland's busiest routes as work begins.
The site above the tunnels will be home to The Haymarket, a £200m development of shops, offices and hotels, with an underground car park being developed by Edinburgh Haymarket Developments. The project is a joint venture between Interserve, an international support services and construction group, and developers Tiger Developments.
It is one of Edinburgh's biggest commercial projects of the last ten years and is expected to create around 3,500 jobs.
David Westwater, Interserve development director, said the preparatory work is the main challenge before construction can begin above ground.
"It will be early next year before we can do that, but then people will soon start to see the development taking shape.
"After such a long time as a gap site, we're very excited about what The Haymarket has to offer and how it will help to create a real gateway at Edinburgh's west end."
The strengthening works will allow contractors to begin building the foundations for the development.
This includes water-proofing between the tunnel lining and the surrounding ground, and drilling and inserting metal bars within the brick lining.
Currently, engineers are only able to work in the north tunnel from midnight till 5am four nights a week and in the south tunnel from 1am to 9.30am for one night a week.
Proposals include four office buildings, shops, bars, cafes and restaurants.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article