News: Piling works complete on £4.1m Rotherham Riverside project
It will have sounded like something reminiscent of the thumping of the old Rotherham Forge and Rolling Mills and now more than 250 sheet piles have been installed as part of a project to open up a riverside area of the town centre for development.
Esh Construction commenced public realm improvement works in the Water Lane area earlier this year. £4.1m of upgrades on land just off Westgate are creating a new access road a new walkway along the River Don into the town centre to complement the new housing developments and leisure scheme at Forge Island.
Specialist techniques have been employed and a total of 127 pairs of piles, weighing up to six tonnes each, have been installed with varying lengths between 14-18m through a five-week period. A temporary piling mat, which extends to 170m long, 8m wide and 550mm deep and equating to 1,500 tonnes of capping was also constructed to support the heavy plant and machinery that will be used throughout the piling works.
Esh has already carried out remediation and repair work to the river walls.
Michael Sherrard, Construction Manager at ESH, said: “In our investigations into the designs for a new pathway, we discovered that the existing brick wall would not support the new footpath, so we had to provide a new piled foundation that had a 100-year design life and that’s where the sheet piling construction comes in.
“These are about as long a sheet pile you are likely to use along a section of riverbank like this and the sections being installed are some of the heaviest available on the market.”
The logistics of getting the 18m sheet piles to site brought challenges with police escorts and movement orders, as well as getting the crane and the rig to site too.
It is anticipated that as the existing riverbank erodes, the new piled foundation to the footpath, with accompanying balustrade would become the new exposed river wall in time, futureproofing the river bank and maintaining the footpath at the same time.
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Esh Construction worked closely with piling experts Sheet Piling UK during this key phase in the project. Emirates Steel Arkan (EMSTEEL) GreenSheetPile™ low carbon sheet piles were used to create the lowest amount of embodied (embedded) carbon within the required sheet piles.
The manufacturing process behind GreenSheetPile™ – the Electric Arc Furnace method – results in much lower amounts of embedded carbon within the finished steel products produced than is the global steel industry norm. Where a typical amount of embedded carbon with global steel sheet pile is 2,300kg per tonne of finished product, the GreenSheetPile™ sheet piles have an embedded carbon value of 708kg per tonne of finished product.
Sheet Piling UK’s director, Andrew Cotton, said: “We are delighted to have worked in a collaborative manner on the Rotherham Riverside project with Esh Construction to ensure the complex sheet piling works were delivered safely, on programme, and within budget. The sheet piling works represented a key element of the project and having a reliable supply chain partner to deliver such works is key to the overall success of the project.”
Other works on the Riverside have included cut and fill operations, deep drainage works and Japanese knotweed removal, with gabion baskets planned to create a retaining wall feature along the new pathway.
The next phase of the works, moving into 2025, will see the piling mat removed and the area between the wall and deep piles back filled, with the capping beam and balustrades to be fitted, enabling the team to proceed with the construction of the new pathway.
Having acquired the land in the area in 2022, Rotherham Council has identified Riverside Residential Quarter Phase 2 in the next phase of regeneration for the town centre, working up the first stages of planning and feasibility for more housing.
Esh website
Images: ESH
Esh Construction commenced public realm improvement works in the Water Lane area earlier this year. £4.1m of upgrades on land just off Westgate are creating a new access road a new walkway along the River Don into the town centre to complement the new housing developments and leisure scheme at Forge Island.
Specialist techniques have been employed and a total of 127 pairs of piles, weighing up to six tonnes each, have been installed with varying lengths between 14-18m through a five-week period. A temporary piling mat, which extends to 170m long, 8m wide and 550mm deep and equating to 1,500 tonnes of capping was also constructed to support the heavy plant and machinery that will be used throughout the piling works.
Esh has already carried out remediation and repair work to the river walls.
Michael Sherrard, Construction Manager at ESH, said: “In our investigations into the designs for a new pathway, we discovered that the existing brick wall would not support the new footpath, so we had to provide a new piled foundation that had a 100-year design life and that’s where the sheet piling construction comes in.
“These are about as long a sheet pile you are likely to use along a section of riverbank like this and the sections being installed are some of the heaviest available on the market.”
The logistics of getting the 18m sheet piles to site brought challenges with police escorts and movement orders, as well as getting the crane and the rig to site too.
It is anticipated that as the existing riverbank erodes, the new piled foundation to the footpath, with accompanying balustrade would become the new exposed river wall in time, futureproofing the river bank and maintaining the footpath at the same time.
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Esh Construction worked closely with piling experts Sheet Piling UK during this key phase in the project. Emirates Steel Arkan (EMSTEEL) GreenSheetPile™ low carbon sheet piles were used to create the lowest amount of embodied (embedded) carbon within the required sheet piles.
The manufacturing process behind GreenSheetPile™ – the Electric Arc Furnace method – results in much lower amounts of embedded carbon within the finished steel products produced than is the global steel industry norm. Where a typical amount of embedded carbon with global steel sheet pile is 2,300kg per tonne of finished product, the GreenSheetPile™ sheet piles have an embedded carbon value of 708kg per tonne of finished product.
Sheet Piling UK’s director, Andrew Cotton, said: “We are delighted to have worked in a collaborative manner on the Rotherham Riverside project with Esh Construction to ensure the complex sheet piling works were delivered safely, on programme, and within budget. The sheet piling works represented a key element of the project and having a reliable supply chain partner to deliver such works is key to the overall success of the project.”
The next phase of the works, moving into 2025, will see the piling mat removed and the area between the wall and deep piles back filled, with the capping beam and balustrades to be fitted, enabling the team to proceed with the construction of the new pathway.
Having acquired the land in the area in 2022, Rotherham Council has identified Riverside Residential Quarter Phase 2 in the next phase of regeneration for the town centre, working up the first stages of planning and feasibility for more housing.
Esh website
Images: ESH
8 comments:
ooo me grapes
Wonder if the Sand Martin colony as been destroyed,will see next summer,if there nesting site as gone.Wouldve thought council would've protected it,been quite a rare species, especially in an urban area,was also kingfishers there.
I've been wondering where all the mystery banging was coming from. Mystery solved! Thanks Rothbiz!
"Mystery Banging"
Sounds like fun night at the County.
There int nowt better than a good piling.
Nice to see that the tradition of throwing pension books into the ring lives on at the County.
No, it's mobility scooter keys mate.
What an image!
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