Project Description
Magna Park in Lutterworth provides a high-quality business park environment specifically focused on logistics and distribution. Covering over 550 acres, it is bounded by the M1, M6 and M69 motorways, making it the first choice for logistics due to its strategic position in the centre of the country.
Home to 29 different occupiers, with 8.3 million sq ft (771,155 sq m) of sustainable logistics floor space and 32 buildings, Magna Park is Gazeley’s flagship distribution park. Since the development of the Park in early 1988, Magna Park’s continuous growth has contributed significantly to the development of the local economy and infrastructure.
Gazeley commissioned Mick George to complete the earthworks operations required on this groundbreaking development, widely regarded as Europe’s premier logistics location.
The Challenge
A substantial amount of earthworks and ground improvement were required to facilitate construction of the distribution centres and the main programme objectives were to accelerate consolidation, reduce construction time and deliver carbon savings by eliminating the use of drainage stone. An innovative and cost effective design solution was needed to enable fast consolidation since a large proportion of the development was constructed on weak ground, where it was necessary to first drain the sub-formation using prefabricated vertical drains (PVDs). The geosynthetic design required a high performance geocomposite drainage layer to discharge the water from the PVDs.
The Solution
The designer developed a geosynthetic solution to provide efficient drainage and ensure consolidation of the sub-formation and the embankment fill.
The Pozidrain G geocomposite layer was chosen to provide drainage above the 150mm Class 6C platform and PVDs at a 1.5m grid spacing. Pozidrain was also installed within the embankment fill at 3m vertical spacings to provide accelerated consolidation.
The use of Pozidran G instead of drainage stone resulted in an impressive 86% / 2,998 tons of CO2 saving in this design.
ABG Pozidrain G Geocomposite specifically designed for consolidation applications
The ABG Service
ABG provided technical advice and design assistance. It was particularly important to coordinate deliveries and ensure efficient installation to meet the required completion deadline on this large project.
