The outline of Everton’s new stadium is becoming ever clearer as work gathers pace on the west stand.
Pre-cast concrete sections are transforming the landscape in the south west corner of the site at Bramley-Moore Dock, less than a week since the first concrete foundation slab was poured.
And within two months, it is anticipated that the ground floor level of the build will be visible along the majority of the west stand.
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Phil Evans, senior engineer at Laing O’Rourke, explained: “We’re well under way now in the west stand with the precast build, and that will spread outwards in the south west corner.
“We’ll work outwards from the south west, and a separate build in the north west will then be undertaken until they meet in the middle.
“We’d expect this to happen in around two months’ time, on the ground level.”
The west and east stands are predominantly concrete builds, with the four giant tower cranes helping to speed up the installation of the precast elements, which are delivered to site in a specific order for assembly.
The terracing units inside the bowl of the stadium will then be installed at a later stage.
Meanwhile, the north and south stands - which in contrast to the west and east are mainly comprised of structural steelwork and precast lattice slabs connecting to the concrete cores – continue to evolve.
‘Flooring’ can be seen in the two separate northern sections, with the sharply angled raking beams at both ends of the stadium beginning to offer a tantalising picture of the emerging terracing.
Amy Latham, section engineer for Laing O’Rourke, explained: “The south stand is coming along well now and looking really good.
“We’ve got four of the steel pillared bays, two of which are partly built, in the centre of the stand.
“We then start with the steelwork on the west side of the south stand on Monday, and within two weeks we’d expect that to be one structure, connected to the south-west core.
“The steelwork on the eastern side of the south stand is then around two weeks behind that, and eventually they will all join up.”
Amy added: “In the north stand, progress has also been good and we’ve now got the concrete lattice slabs laid, similar to decking, on all of level one.
“A concrete slab will be poured on top of these in the future, and we hope to have all of level two done as well. It all goes up pretty quickly.”
Everton’s new stadium at Bramley-Moore Dock, due for completion in the 2024/25 season, is recognised as the largest single-site private sector development in the country, contributing an estimated £1.3bn to the UK economy, creating thousands of jobs and attracting 1.4m visitors to the city of Liverpool, annually.
Once complete, the scheme will have acted as a catalyst for more than £650m worth of accelerated regeneration directly benefiting the nearby Ten Streets development.
