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Piling into Peterborough
May Gurney's Geotechnical division is working on a significant piling project with a subsidiary of the developer Kier Residential, which will ultimately deliver more than 600 new homes in Peterborough.
The site, Potters Way, was once home to a sewage treatment works that closed when it became obvious it could not cope with the city's expansion. After laying dormant for about 16 years Kier Residential subsidiary, Allison Homes, bought it for a housing development that, when complete, will comprise 550 apartments and 56 town houses.
May Gurney initially carried out a £153,000 contract to install 250, 450mm diameter 1240kN CFA piles for 116 apartments in two blocks. Main piling began in early August and finished four weeks later. The site team is headed up by Darren Magarry and his crew Nigel Finch, Mark Bedford and Adam Millikin.
May Gurney Southern Area Manager, Mike Cowan said: "This job is unusual because of the ground profile. In other parts of Peterborough we have been able to found piles in the Cornbrash Limestone layer, but here this strata is thinner and has been taken out in areas for the old sewage works so we must found in the underlying Blisworth Limestone."
Sewage remediation was completed before the developer came on site, but there were still a number of concrete tanks in the ground. As site workers break out those that conflict with the development, they are infilling the voids and compacting the ground to an additional 3m height, in line with the rest of the site, as a precaution against flood defence failure. This is because the River Nene is less than 1km away to the south and a marshy flood plain extends towards the site.
Although the site investigation covered the site extensively, it could not cover the areas under the tanks. As such, May Gurney carried out five extra boreholes to verify the stratum there and decided to found in the lower band of limestone.
With satisfactory data from both the extra boreholes and two preliminary static load tested piles, May Gurney was able to fine-tune the original design.
"The design 12 months earlier had 600mm piles and we knew what ground we had here. But with the extra boreholes we then knew 450mm piles could be used," said Mark Tipping, Alison Homes Project Manager.
Mike Cowan added: "There were significant savings as there is about half the concrete needed with the smaller piles."
Article courtesy of Ground Engineering magazine. Click here to read the full story.
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