Another "significant milestone" has been completed on the Beauly Denny project, SSE has confirmed.

The team behind the development have now completed work on all 539 tower foundations in the Scottish Hydro Electric (SHE) Transmission section. The foundation teams has spent three years on this section of the scheme. Some 67,000 cubic metres of concrete has been used during this phase to cement 2,156 tower legs into position.

Commenting on the progress being made, Alastair Brand, Beauly Denny Project Director, said: "We are delighted to have completed all tower foundations in our area following a challenging programme of works.

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"The foundation teams have battled through Highland winters along with working on challenging terrain including bogs and mountain sides to reach their goal, I am very impressed with their efforts which keep the project on programme to be completed in autumn 2015."

He continued: "Engineers used several designs throughout the project including: conventional foundations which consist of large concrete bases averaging five metres deep and four metres wide, rock anchors which require cementing of steel piles into rock, steel driven tubes which involves driving large steel tubes into softer ground and finally an innovative technique which involved cementing 'mini piles' into rock.

"Construction of the tower foundations is arguably the most important part of the project, without a solid base the towers would not stand up to the stresses and strains caused by the Scottish weather. Audits and inspections were carried out at every stage of the foundation construction to ensure their quality, this was essential as it is very hard to inspect foundations once buried."

Work commenced on the 220km Beauly Denny project in 2010 and is scheduled to be completed in November 2015.

(JP/IT)