The bridge was designed by Cass Hayward and Capita Symonds, and won the 2007 IStructE Award for Transportation Structures. Around 10,000 tonnes of steel was used in construction, which was carried out by Carillion under a private finance initiative contract, was made more difficult because many of the bridge's piers had to be built on marshland. A jacking mechanism was employed to move the sections of roadway into position from each end of the bridge, with the final two sections of deck lifted into place during November 2005.