In September 2011 Southbay commenced works on Roker Pier, Sunderland. The works awarded by Sunderland City Council involve removing 42m of granite coping stones, dress and replace. After years of wave action from the North Sea the coping stones had become unseated, had broken away from the main deck and were in danger of falling off the pier.
No tracked plant is permitted onto the pier so a Franna crane was used to lift the granite blocks. The drilling of the granite blocks was not permitted as the pier is a listed structure so each block had to be jacked up and lifted with webbing slings, the blocks weighed between 2t and 5.7t each.
During the contract rough seas forced the work to be delayed. Southbay also carried out some emergency deck repairs after the pier suffered damage to the concrete deck from the sea.