The major civil engineering project involves the extension of the runway’s eastern and western ends into the sea through land reclamation and will open up opportunities to increase capacity on existing air services and develop new scheduled flights with larger types of aircraft.

At the west end of the runway the bund, core fill and primary armour is complete to within two metres of the final height and work is underway to construct the top level of armouring. The perimeter bund has been completed and armoured to above high water mark at the east end of the extension and more than 70% of the core infill material has been placed.

More than 243,000 m³ of infill material has been deposited in the sea since work started on site on 25 April. This material has been extracted from the Wilsness Hill area of the airport.

More than 38,000 tonnes of primary rock armour from Norway has been delivered to the site by barges over the past month. The final delivery from Norway is due to take place in the first week of September.

The current priority is to raise the level of the perimeter bud and rock armour to the final design height.

The runway extension is the largest ever capital project undertaken by Highlands and Islands Airports Limited and is being project managed by Shetland Islands Council. It involves extending the runway and modifications to the existing airfield ground lighting and instrument landing system at the airport.

The runway extension has been the key aim for the members of the Sumburgh Airport Strategic Partnership for more than two years. The partnership comprises HIAL, Shetland Islands Council, Shetland Enterprise, and the Sumburgh Airport Consultative Committee. The project is also one of the Highlands and Islands Strategic Transport Partnership’s (HITRANS) infrastructure priorities for the region.

Funding commitments from the SASP partners and the Scottish Executive were finalised earlier this year along with match funding from the European Regional Development Fund through the Highlands and Islands Special Transitional Programme 2000-2006.

The total cost of the project will be circa £10 million and the principal contractor is Balfour Beatty Civil Engineering Ltd (BBCEL). Design and project management services are being provided by Shetland Islands Council’s Capital Programme Service (SIC-CPS).

Shetland experiences perhaps the most aggressive marine environment in the UK which presented three main challenges to the project team. Firstly, the structure had to be robust enough to survive the prolonged and sustained battering of the winter seas year on year. Secondly the structure had to be able to be built in a fairly short construction season with gales starting late September and going on to late March/early April every year. Thirdly, the solution had to remain affordable and represent value for money for the funding partners.

An Early Contractor Involvement (ECI) procurement strategy was seen as the most effective way to meet the challenges. On this basis the SIC-CPS/HIAL team developed a preliminary design for tender purposes to select a contractor to join the team on a project specific informal partnering basis. The form of contract chosen was an ECC Option D – Target Price. BBCEL won the tender and with the team complete ten weeks were spent developing and refining a solution that focussed on buildability, affordability and structural integrity.

Sumburgh Airport manager Nigel Flaws said: “The extension will allow larger aircraft to use the airport and existing aircraft to operate without weight restrictions. It will also support our route development work, which aims to deliver new air services for Shetland, and is expected to benefit the oil industry’s fixed-wing and helicopter air transport logistics in the North Sea, West of Shetland and Faroese sectors.

“The target date for the extended runway becoming operational is 31 October 2006 and the project will also facilitate the development of the Wilsness Hill site for airport and commercial uses in the longer term.”

Grant Dudgeon, HIAL’s infrastructure services manager said: “This is a unique project for HIAL, our partners and, for that matter, the UK airport industry. The climate and location pose additional challenges to a job that is fairly complex.

“We recently had a visit from a delegation from the Isle of Man where they are particularly interested in Sumburgh as they have plans for extending their own airport runway through land reclamation from the sea. We expect a further site visit from them later in the project.

“The whole project in terms of design, build and procurement is delivering excellent results to date and we are pleased to be developing a scheme that should serve as a model for best practice in the industry,” said Mr Dudgeon.