COMMERCIAL
Commercial CASE STUDIES
Circle Square
(Former BBC Broadcasting House), Oxford Road, Manchester
NX were commissioned to undertake a site wide pre-acquisition geo-environmental and geotechnical ground investigation at a site located on Oxford Road, Manchester. The site comprised large car park following the demolition of the former BBC Broadcasting house buildings and plans involved the construction of multi-storey car parking, hotels, student accommodation and office units. The River Irwell ran along-side the boundary. An examination of the site history as part of a Phase I desk study had uncovered previous potentially contaminating development comprising tanneries, engineering workshops and below ground fuel tanks. A Phase II investigation was developed to provide information on soil and groundwater so that appropriate remediation measures and foundation solutions could be developed.
Site works comprised 18 cable percussive boreholes, 4 rotary cored boreholes, 21 window sampling boreholes and 8 trial pits. In addition, ground gas monitoring and a trial trenching exercise was undertaken using a long reach excavator to locate buried basements, pile caps and ground beams.
NX’s work enabled the client to establish pre-acquisition abnormal development costs for the site purchase with full geo-environmental information relating to geo-technics and land contamination.
Hotel Developments
Premier Inn & Costa Coffee Drive Thru Stores
NX provide geoenvironmental and geotechnical services on the national framework for Whitbread PLC and are involved in the construction of new public houses, restaurants, Costa Coffee Drive Thru, and Premier hotels across the north of England and Scotland.
On a hotel development in Leeds, NX were employed to carry out a Phase 1 Desk Study and preliminary and secondary site investigation works, remediation strategy and validation reporting on the former landfill site. Ground conditions were complex with a combination of buried infrastructure, underlying coal seams and a nearby mineshaft.
A combination of rotary drilling, machine excavated trial pitting and window sampling were utilised to establish the ground conditions and develop a conceptual model. A coal mining and ground gas risk assessment was carried out to establish remediation measures and capping measures of the site.
The result was an innovative foundation solution comprising retaining walls, a raft slab and reuse of site won and externally sourced fill to enable the development to be constructed. Ground gas protection measures were designed and verified suitable for this development.
Regular liaison and communication with the local authority, the Coal Authority and the NHBC enabled relevant planning conditions to be discharged.
