Early milestone reached in Gateshead Flyover demolition
Contractors working to demolish the condemned Gateshead flyover are celebrating an early milestone - after work to bring it down got underway last month
An early milestone in the demolition of the Gateshead flyover has been reached – with excavators breaking through the full width of the doomed highway for the first time.
Locals may have noticed a yawning gap has now emerged in the section of the A167 flyover that ran above Sunderland Road, after the work to tear down the concrete structure began in earnest last month.
Contractors working on the huge demolition project celebrated the achievement last Friday, May 1, and are now continuing with the gradual process of removing the condemned flyover.
It is expected that it will take until October to fully demolish the road, which has been closed since December 2024 due to concerns over its structural integrity.
Gateshead Council said that the long-awaited demolition works being carried out by BAM and Thompsons of Prudhoe were making a “big difference already”, opening up a view through the flyover for the first time in decades.
The local authority said that it would be largely demolished by May 2026, before that end date was pushed back further.
While breaking through the span of the flyover for the first time on May 1 may represent slower progress than many had hoped for in removing the elevated highway, the council said it was a significant moment nonetheless.
A spokesperson added: “As our work with BAM to bring down the flyover progresses, we wanted to share this great milestone – and a bit more about the process on site. We’ve been asked a few questions about what machines are operating.
“The answer is BAM and Thompsons have several different excavators and support vehicles on the project. What you can see working day-to-day on the demolition is what we’re calling ‘munchers’.
“They work by using ‘mechanical jaws’ to gradually crush through the concrete and steel structure. Where the concrete is especially thick, the drivers sometimes need to use a different attachment on their excavators – a steel ram to ‘peck’ at the concrete to break it up, before switching back to the mechanical jaws.
“They use fine water jets to help reduce the amount of dust coming out of the demolition process. The team will be completing the demolition in a specific sequence to ensure the structure remains balanced as we bring it down.”
The demolition work is initially focusing on the central section of the flyover, with the on and off ramps next to the Sunderland Road bus lane having been the first structures torn down.
Demolition teams will later move to the area around the Five Bridges roundabout in late June and then towards the Park Lane roundabout later in the summer, before finishing the project at the section directly above the underground Tyne and Wear Metro tunnels.
A series of 40 steel props, each weighing 10 tonnes, has been erected beneath the flyover to prevent it collapsing during the demolition.