Turning contaminated land into something lovely!

June 13, 2012

Many of our customers are involved in turning contaminated land into development land, in other words remediating sites.  They provide a complete solution from initial consultation through to the design stage, carrying out works to clear the land to make way for something better.

A good news story where remediation of an area of land was undertaken not to create a potential building site for housing but a park for local residents, is Central Forest Park, Stoke-on-Trent.  This park was improved through the Greening for Growth programme, the largest environmental regeneration programme in the West Midlands aiming to create well used and maintained landmark parks that offer more leisure opportunities and attract visitors to an area.

The site originally housed a lubricant factory and hydrocarbons were discovered contaminating the soil and groundwater. A remediation programme to remove the contaminated soils and recover the free phase lubricating oil took place.  In addition 6,000m2 of mine workings were grouted and eight mine shafts sealed. This entailed removing 319 tonnes of hydrocarbons so that 99% of all the excavated soil was recycled and used back at the site, that equated to 30,000m3 of contaminated soil treated for re-use on site!

The park is now part of a network in North Staffordshire of safe, attractive off-road routes for pedestrians and cyclists where canals, rivers and disused railways link green spaces with homes, work places and leisure facilities. More than 28km of greenways have been created or upgraded to produce a landscape to be proud of where major transport routes and developments are set in interesting, high quality scenery – a place where people want to live, work and play.