Current Work
PLOT A DEVELOPMENT BRIEF NOW ON LINE (March 20 2007)
Plot A is the first phase of the Urban Village and as such it is vital that the development of the plot should set the right standards in terms of urban design, architectural quality and environmental performance. In order to achieve this we have produced a design guide to inform the way the individual design teams approach the task.
The over-riding objective of the guidance is to enable "firm commitments to be made regarding external environmental treatment, the aesthetic approach to the architecture and form, infrastructure, structural and ornamental landscape, lighting and street furniture." The overall aim is to "achieve a prestigious development of co-ordinated identity, with striking landmark buildings located within an attractive, high qualitty urban setting"
You can download the Development Brief by clicking here.
PLOT A MINEWORKINGS CONTRACT (March 2007)
As part of the development of the first phase of the Urban Village, comprising the new Bilston Leisure Centre and the Primary Care Trust's new health resource centre, we have just finished the first of two major contracts to prepare the site.
M&J Drilling Services have completed a 26 week contract involving the grouting of shallow mineworkings on plot A together with the location and stabilisation of vertical mineshafts on the former Brook Terrace scrapyard site and on the embankment to the south of the former GKN Sankey sports ground.
In addition, three mineshafts and an old well were discovered on plot A. These were unrecorded shafts and were found during the contract and subsequently grouted.
Grouting of mineworkings involves drilling down to the shallow coal seams to discover the extent of broken ground and voids. If left untreated, these can collapse over time and eventually this comes to the surface causing instability. After drilling, a mixture of 10 parts PFA (pulverised fuel ash (from power stations)) to 1 part cement is mixed and this is then pumped into the voids. When the mixture sets it consolidates the ground, preventing future movement of buildings and services - very important when we are planning to build a new swimming pool on the site!
In total, around 10,400 tons of grout were used and the total length of drilling on site amounted to just over 47,000 metres (47 kilometres).
STRATEGY DOCUMENTS (July 2005)
We are now drawing to the end of the feasibility stage of the design of the Urban Village and a series of strategy documents have been prepared which set out the current work in progress.
These cover the whole range of topics and each one is available to download separately. The complete list is given below:
1. Introduction
2. Highways
3. Footpaths and cycleways (1)
4. Foorpaths and cycleways (2)
5. High Street Link
6. Public transport
7. Traffic Calming
8. Recreation
9. Nature Conservation
10. Drainage
11. Public Art
12. Canal
13. Indicative plots
14. Affordable Housing
15. Crime Prevention
16. Community Facilities (1)
17. Community Facilities (2)
18. Utilities Diversions
We still want to hear from anyone who wishes to make a comment on the current proposals. A report on the recent public consultation will be produced shortly together with responses from the design team on the way in which comments have been incorporated into the design process.
The detailed design commission is the way the framework plan gets translated into the detail of what will actually get built.
Arguably it is the most critical part of the process and it is vital that as many people as possible take the chance to get involved in the process.
After a lengthy tendering process four design teams were interviewed on May 22 2003.
The detailed design team has now begun working on the next critical stage of the development of the urban village. This involves looking in detail at every aspect of the proposals, based on the original masterplanning work but refining and adapting it to take account of new opportunities, further ground condition surveys and feedback from consultation.
The design team is led by an engineering and project management consultancy called Waterman Civils (www.waterman-group.co.uk) supported by a urban design/landscape consultancy called Faulks Perry Culley & Rech (FPCR) (www.fpcr.co.uk)
The initial stages of work will involve a review of available information and an assessment of further investigations and surveys which will be required before the design work proper can start. As this stage of the project develops information will be available on the Detailed Design page so that the website can act as one of the tools in the consultation process. The consultants will be working to a brief which is available on the downloads page.
GROUND INVESTIGATION WORK BEGINS
The latest round of work on site started last week (13/09/04) with Soil Mechanics undertaking a comprehensive investigation of ground conditions on site. The ground investigation has been designed and specified by Waterman Burrow Crocker, Consulting Engineers, who lead the detailed design team and they will be supervising the ground investigation on site during the 7 or 8 weeks that the contract is due to run. On completion of the site works Waterman Burrow Crocker will interpret the ground investigation data.
The work will enable the detailed design to proceed with greater confidence as we will have a better understanding of the engineering properties, distribution and composition of “Made Ground” (i.e. material deposited as part of a previous use on the site, rather than natural ground), levels of contamination and the extent of shallow underground voids left by the former coal workings.
A number of different techniques are used to investigate the below ground conditions. There are three different types of drilling used, these being:
• Cable Percussive
• Rotary Percussive Open Holes
• Rotary Cored Holes
Each type of drilling is used for a different purpose. Cable percussion use smallish rigs to determine the depth, composition and engineering properties of soils including the “Made Ground”.
Rotary percussive open holes go much deeper and will reveal the presence of shallow voids (normally no more than about 30 metres below ground level). Rotary cored holes are more expensive, but enable samples of material to be retrieved for analysis.
Trial pits are large rectangular excavations about a metre wide and excavated to a depth of no more than 6 metres. As the trial pit is dug and material is stockpiled at the side, samples of soil are taken and sent to laboratories for geotechnical and chemical analysis.
A plan showing the approximate location of the boreholes and trial pits is available by clicking here.