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Looking Back On 2019

02/01/2020

A month into 2020 and 2019 already seems far behind us. In this latest post, B&A take a last look at some of our 2019 project achievements and detail a few of the new and exciting schemes in store for us and our clients in 2020.

Copart Vehicle Depot Expansion

January – March 2019

Building Land

At the beginning of 2019, B&A Group were heavily involved in delivering Copart’s (Avonmouth branch) Vehicle Depot Expansion. Working closely with principal contractor Vanguard Contracts and developer Copart, B&A Group provided a range of services, achieving the following:

  • Production of Construction Environmental Management Plan and enabling Ecological Appraisals for planning requirements for this 12 hectare site.
  • Site preparation of 100,000m² (or over 16 football pitches!)
  • Creation of new 90,000m² compound area for vehicle storage with imported subsoil and aggregates – both quarried and recycled
  • Importation of 87,000 tonnes of aggregates
  • Creation of screening bunds on-site

The £850,000 project lasted 8 weeks. Over the course of the project, B&A Group’s contribution included earthworks, vegetation clearance, topsoil removal, 8 wheel tippers, site enabling works, aggregate supply placement and compaction and road construction.

East Park Student Accommodation, University of Exeter

March 2019 – Present

East Park Student Accommodation

B&A Group is currently involved in supporting client Churngold Construction Ltd with the creation of brand new student accommodation at the University of Exeter. The £1.4m project will see Churngold construct 13 blocks of student flats at the new East Park site. The finished site will comprise 1,182 bedrooms and communal spaces.

Due to varying site levels (up to 30 metres), blocks varied in height from four floors to the north of the site, to eight floors at the southern end. Construction is on a tiered arrangement, which has yielded vast quantities of subsoil for offsite removal (over 5,500 tipper loads and counting) The total offsite volume is predicted at 55,000 cubic metres (or 22 Olympic-sized swimming pools!). In just three months, B&A Group removed 45,000m³.

Our contributions to this exciting project include muck away services, 8 wheel tippers, articulated tippers and site enabling works.

Mead Fields, Parklands

June – July 2019

Building Land

In the summer, B&A Group worked closely with housing developer Taylor Wimpey on a new housing site at Parklands, Weston-super-Mare. We were involved in Phases 1 & 2 of pile matt installation. The project spanned 2 weeks and was worth over £275,000.

B&A Group were the sole subsoil importer for two national homebuilders at this expansive 38-hectare development site. The site is part of a new community infrastructure of mixed use development. It is to be comprised of 1,150 residential dwellings, care homes, a hotel, offices and industry outlets, a veterinary practice, nursery, leisure facilities, doctor/dental surgery, a community building, convenience shop, primary school, open spaces, multi-use games area, equipped play areas, a tennis court, sports pitches, allotments and an orchard.

Situated in a low-lying flood risk area and with poor quality peat underlying surface soils, a detailed design and strategy was implemented. In addition to increasing ground levels, a separate pre-load (or surcharge) layer was required to compress water out of the peat strata. Settlement stations were installed and carefully monitored to check the behaviour of the site pre-load against predicted models. B&A Group’s role then continued with the bulk cut and fill on-site earthworks after the pre-load phase.

After cutting the engineering ground to formation, the pile mat works could commence.

For Taylor Wimpey’s Phase 1 & 2 pile matt installation, B&A Group constructed a 16,700m² piling platform ready for driven piles. This was achieved in 2 weeks with 11,000 tonnes of Quarried 6F5 Capping Aggregate. Our work included aggregate supply, haulage, placement and compaction.

Land South of Morris Road, Lockleaze

August – September 2019

Land South of Morris Road, Lockleaze

Over the course of 7 weeks, B&A Group worked with client Renelec Groundworks to transform a derelict site in Lockleaze into an engineered, enabled site for the piling and groundworks phase of works to follow.

The site, which was overgrown and had been subject to years of fly tipping and misuse, will eventually become a highly sustainable community development, incorporating shared facilities and a wildlife corridor.

The proposed development consists of a mix of affordable, rented accommodation and low cost home ownership. In total, 49 dwellings (2, 3 & 4 bed houses and 1 & 2 bed flats) are to be built. United Living, United Communities and Bristol Community Land Trust will ultimately bring this project full circle to provide much needed affordable housing to the local community.

This £650,000 project required many of B&A Group’s services, including land remediation, hazardous material removal, licenced and unlicenced asbestos removal, earthworks, muck away, contaminated land removal, 8 wheel tippers, soil analysis, soil classification, site enabling works, aggregate supply placement and compaction and road construction.

You can read more about the project here.

LOOKING AHEAD TO 2020

We’ve got several exciting projects lined up for 2020, including…

Commercial Development – Project Gold, Severn Road, Avonmouth

Project Gold, Severn Road, Avonmouth

This brand new development, situated just north of B&A Group headquarters in Avonmouth, will feature 40+ acres of fully serviced plots. Plots will be available from 2 to 10 acres each. B&A Group will be providing support in the form of aggregate supply for road construction, subsoil removal for commercial developments – drainage services, foundation and pile arisings and hardcore removal of pile caps.

Balla Property Developments Ltd, part of the B&A Group, also owns 6.5acres of this development, which will create leasehold opportunities for suitable occupiers offering flexible terms. We are excited to welcome new businesses to the area and be a part of this new development.

New Homes – Harry Stoke, Phase Two

New Homes – Harry Stoke, Phase Two

A new development in north Bristol will see hundreds of new homes built at this site in Harry Stoke. Phase Two of the project is scheduled to begin later this year. The site, just off junction 1 of the M32, will also include a nursery, community centre and shops. B&A Group are supporting this project through supplying quarried and recycled aggregates, and removing subsoil and topsoil for the residential developments.

Brabazon – A New Neighbourhood on the Site of the Former Filton Airfield

Former Filton Airfield
Former Filton Airfield

The historic former Filton Airfield – birthplace of Concorde and supersonic travel – is being transformed into a thriving new neighbourhood for Bristol. Over the next 20 years, the 380 acres of this historic local landmark will become a new urban community with over 2,600 homes, creative workplaces and an exciting new retail and leisure hub, all set amongst landscaped public squares and a new public park for North Bristol. Brabazon will also be home to a new railway station, which will link to Bristol Temple Meads in less than 15 minutes, and a dedicated Metrobus route; both are expected to begin operating by 2022.

B&A Group have been commissioned by YTL Developments to provide haulage solutions for the first phase at Brabazon and to import necessary clean, naturally occurring subsoil and topsoil for reuse under the CL:AIRE DoW CoP.

Filton Rail Bridge Replacement & Road Widening

Filton Rail Bridge Replacement & Road Widening

B&A Group are assisting Alun Griffths with a project that will see a much needed rail bridge replacement and road widening in Filton. The new bridge and the wider road will be better equipped to handle the traffic through Filton. Our support for this project includes bulk subsoil removal planned within very tight timeframes, due to a limited Network Rail possession window.

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