Agripower Contractors, a specialist in all aspects of natural and synthetic surfaces has completed the conversion of a former school demolition site in Luton into a state of the art 3G synthetic sports pitch and 4-court MUGA.
After a lengthy design process working closely with the client's surveyors and engineers, Agripower arrived at an innovative design solution which utilised site derived demolition waste and avoided the requirement of a positive outfall for water dispersal.
In addition to the main contract Agripower were tasked with the site formation and earthworks for a SUDS car park, external landscaping, break-out areas and the creation of all site plateaux for sports areas.
The first challenge was dealing with the residual concrete and masonry post demolition. Large strip foundations, service shafts and deactivated supply conduits were removed where feasible and the chalk subsoil was levelled to a pre-determined construction level.
Conventional drainage at 10m centres using the company's specialist high speed trenching equipment was changed to a series of lateral soak-away drains at depths of 1.4 m connecting into a main drain trench of 1.8 m deep below formation ensuring a good penetration into the undisturbed chalk strata. The drains were terminated into a 20 x 4 x 2m soak away as a safe guard against prolonged heavy rainfall.
Approximately 6,000 tons of site derived crushed concrete were deposited over the formation which helped to keep the site waste well within the site target and further reducing the need for importing large quantities of quarried stone.
A 125mm layer of type 3, 50mm of 10mm open textured wearing course, 15mm insitu-shockpad and Tiger Turf Euro Soccer 40 completed the construction works.
Graham Longdin Director for Agripower said:
"A 10 week programme is a tight timeframe to work within, especially when considering the amount of enabling works required before the main construction works could fully commence; full credit to the Agripower team for their hard work and commitment, ensuring a quality product delivered in a timely fashion".
Construction Manager for Wates Construction, Dale Badhams, commented:
"The whole of Agripower's workforce adopted a 'can do' attitude. Agripower managed the contract in a very professional manner and the works were completed ahead of schedule and to a very high standard. Working closely with a company that has directly employed staff and run a fleet of modern specialist equipment was a pleasure and I am looking forward to working with them again in the near future".
