CLIENT: St Francis Group / Lidl
CONTRACT DURATION: 6 months
St Francis Group, Junction 9 Improvement Works, Wednesbury
The project near the busy Junction 9 in Wednesbury was to enable a development for Lidl Supermarkets. The popular supermarket chain were building a new 450,000 square foot distribution centre on the 22 acre site, in conjunction with developer Opus Land. The land had flooding issues, which needed to be addressed before the construction of the distribution centre could proceed, as well as relocating the flood channels on the site to a different area in order to maximise the construction area of the site.
The duration of our works was for 6 months over to phases. All works were carried out on time and without accident or incident.
Works carried out on site by Union Contracting Included:
New Highway / Roundabout Construction / Footpath Diversion
Breaking out and removal of existing carriageway, construction of the new dual carriageway into the new site, roundabout construction and the construction of 1km of diverted footpath, that had previously been located across the centre of the site via an old road, the footpath was diverted around a large area to the perimeter (front, side and across the rear) of the new distribution centre. Works included all drainage associated with the new roundabout and carriageway.
Flood Relief Channel
Construction of the redirected Flood Relief Channel in order to utilize a larger part of the site for the construction of the new Lidl Distribution Centre. Works on the flood relief channel included, installation of culverts and piling works.
Balancing Ponds
Due to the large hard standing area construction for the lorries at the new distribution centre, a solution had to be found to control flooding of the area. Balancing ponds were constructed so that in the event of heavy rainfall, the site could cope by storing the excess water temporarily, before being released slowly into the watercourses. All interconnecting drainage and stub drainage for future connections and outlets / inlets to a from the River Tame were also included in the works as well as the installation of the headwalls.
Service Diversion Works
We were responsible for all civils works to enable the power contractors to disconnect and terminate the HV power and replace with a new 11kv cable, civils associated with a new 2MVA electricity supply and access chambers and draw pits for water, gas, BT and Virgin.
