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Rail2026

Botley Road Interchange

Rail infrastructure project in Oxford

Platform works and station access improvements, built across eighteen months of night possessions beside a live railway.

New build services
A brick commercial extension wrapped in scaffolding at dusk

Project facts

Client
Named on request
Location
Botley Road, Oxford
Contract type
Traditional, NEC3
Contract value
£4.2m
Night possessions
38
Programme
78 weeks
Completed
March 2026

01 — The brief

Eighteen months of night work

The station needed a lengthened platform, a new accessible ramp and rebuilt canopy supports, all within a live operational railway carrying passenger services until late evening and freight overnight.

Every hour of work had to fit inside a booked possession, and anything left incomplete at 5am had to be made safe for a 6am service. There was no room for a programme that assumed continuous access.

02 — Delivery

Planned to the possession, not the week

The programme was written backwards from 38 booked possessions, each between four and six hours. Every possession had its own method statement, plant list and demobilisation plan, and work that could be prefabricated off site was — including the ramp balustrades and the canopy support brackets.

Our site manager held the possession log and the safe work pack for every shift, and one of the directors attended the first possession of each new work type. Two possessions were handed back early; none overran.

  • 38 booked night possessions
  • Method statement per possession
  • Off-site prefabrication of balustrades and brackets
  • Made safe for 6am service every shift
  • Platform lengthened by 46m
  • New accessible ramp and canopy supports

03 — The outcome

No overruns, no service impact

FF Construction completed the £4.2m Botley Road Interchange platform and access works in March 2026, across 38 night possessions over 78 weeks, without a single possession overrun or daytime service disruption.

The platform was lengthened by 46m and the station became step-free for the first time. The work was delivered with no RIDDOR-reportable incidents.

Gallery

Work that only happened at night

  • A brick commercial extension wrapped in scaffolding at dusk
    A typical possession: four hours from handover to hand back.
  • Scaffolding and blockwork on a commercial site
    Balustrades were built off site and craned in during a single shift.
  • A steel frame going up on a new build site
    The finished ramp made the station step-free for the first time.

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