Stonelake Park
Innovative engineering techniques were used to overcome the severe site constraints of this demanding project on a former land fill site crossed by a large precast piled concrete storm water sewer and a high pressure 600 millimetre diameter gas main. This was compounded by the underlying buried marshland generating soil gasses. No surface water discharge was permitted to adjacent sewers, which had prevented others from developing this site.
The solution to the surface water problem was to create a flow balancing storage ditch that discharged into the tidal part of the Thames via a 500 metre long culvert.
These included lightweight polystyrene embankments for heavy goods vehicle access across the old piled sewer and a five metre high reinforced earth embankment to create a maximum development footprint. Improvement in active soil gas was achieved through careful geotechnical appraisals. Utilisation of a special piling system to avoid creating contamination paths into underlying acquifers satisfied the environmental constraints.
