An innovative earthworks programme at the site of Kvaerner Construction’s Moreton Prison in East Staffordshire has kept more than 40,000 trucks off the local roads.
The company is reusing all earth from within the site to create the grounds for a new £69 million 800-place category B PFI prison it is building for Premier Prison Services. The site will include three large man-made lakes with a total area of almost 50,000 square metres. It will also feature a marshland area, screen mounding and extensive landscaping to enhance the local ecology.
To ensure that moving the sand and gravel around the site to create the prison footprint is carried out as speedily as possible, the company installed a one-kilometre long conveyor belt so that on-site truck movements and noise are also kept to a minimum.
To date 61,000 cubic metres of sand and gravel out of an eventual total of 112,000 cubic metres has been moved in a just over two months. About 1,000 cubic metres of concrete slabs which were on the site are being crushed and graded to be reused, while 20,000 cubic metres of excavated sand and gravel is being graded for use as the prison sub base replacement, surround, backfill and for edging to the lakes.
Piling is just starting and pre-cast panels will begin to be erected during January. The first prisoners are due at the completed prison in July 2001.
This is Kvaerner Construction’s fifth and biggest design, construct and equip PFI prison contract for Premier Prison Services. It follows successful jobs at Lowdham Grange in Nottinghamshire; Kilmarnock in Ayeshire; Hassocksfield Secure Training Centre in County Durham; and at Ashfield Young Offenders Institute near Bristol.
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