Project Description
Aston Villa Football Club have recently completed their new youth training facility at Brookvale Academy, just 550m northeast of Villa Park. The new facility features a full‐size indoor 4G pitch and a ¾‐size outdoor 4G pitch, both of which are available for use by local schools and community teams.
The Challenge
Specialist sports pitch builder S&C Slatter were awarded the contract to deliver the ¾‐size outdoor pitch. A traditional pipe and stone based lateral drainage system was considered, but is prone to the formation being softened during the end of winter installation period, so an alternative method was sought.
The Solution
Following previous experience with using geocomposite products for sports pitch drainage, the contractor opted to install 6,300m2 of Pozidrain G4SD. The cuspated drainage geocomposite includes an upper and lower filtration geotextile and is supplied in 4.4 m wide rolls to enable a fast and simple installation.
The installation of the traditional pipe and stone based lateral drainage alternative can take approximately one week, whereas the only limiting factor to the installation of the Pozidrain drainage system is the speed at which the covering stone can be delivered from the local supplier.
Since the installation was undertaken at the end of winter, another consideration was not leaving the formation exposed to potential inclement weather whilst the lateral drains were being installed.
This can easily reduce the formation CBR, leading to costly remediation works and Pozidrain provides formation cover to prevent exposure to wet weather conditions. The site had also previously been used for over 100 years as various manufacturing works, and had been redeveloped several times to suit the different operations over time. As such, the utilisation of a “no‐dig” drainage system mitigates the risk of unearthing unknown contamination issues and complications on former industrial land. The large coverage provided by just one roll of Pozidrain involves far fewer site deliveries than using deeper crushed stone drainage layers, with equivalent flow capacity provided by the thin cuspated geocomposite instead.
The ABG Service
ABG provided design assistance and efficient supply of the Pozidrain product for the project.
