Little Chalfont Bridge

Little Chalfont is undergoing a major transformation as the Hill Group delivers a new neighbourhood of 480 homes across a former golf course and Homestead Farm. One of the planning conditions from Buckinghamshire County Council was non-negotiable: the new neighbourhood needed a safer, more direct route for pedestrians and cyclists to reach the station and village centre, which meant crossing the London Underground Metropolitan line, where it runs through a deep cutting that currently cuts the site off from its surroundings. 

We explored several structural options before settling on a full through warren truss, the best balance of value, buildability and appearance for a 43-metre span. Steel gave us the strength to clear the cutting in one go, but the clean, simple lines of the truss mean the bridge sits quietly in the landscape rather than dominating it. We also tested multiple approach alignments on the southern side to find the route that ties most directly into the heart of the new development.

The design was refined through close collaboration with the Hill Group and Beaver Bridges, backed by detailed optioneering, visualisations and alignment studies, making sure that the final design met planning expectations and worked for the landscape and the community using it. 

Then came the part that makes this bridge one of our more memorable projects: the completed 43-metre weathering steel bridge was lifted into place in a single operation…on Christmas Day! It was the only way to install a structure of this size without disrupting train services and it was the culmination of more than a year of preparation and coordination. 

Little Chalfont now has a direct, accessible route across the railway that didn’t exist before, replacing an existing masonry footbridge that could no longer meet today’s accessibility standards. It’s a crossing built for a growing community and one of the more unusual installs the team has been part of.