Client
BWB Consulting Ltd and Southreef Properties Ltd.
Location
Canal Street, Nottingham City Centre
Overview
A prominent development at 6000m2, the area is bounded by Nottingham Canal to the South, Canal Street to the North, and stretching from London Road to the Nottingham Crown Courts. Visit Southreef's Website>> for more info.
Problem
The development area had extensive ground water problems, with the entire site perimeter enclosed with driven steel-sheet piles to withhold the Nottingham Canal, and with full demolition previously having taken place, no sewer connections to the site were left traceable.
With 4 lanes of busy traffic using Canal Street daily, opening up the highway for multiple new sewer connections would be both disruptive and costly.
TBL Solution
TBL used a ‘front’ monitoring/rescue team with full breathing apparatus (uncoupled to give the long 6 to 8 hour survey duration envisaged) to carry out a “live sewer” walk-though survey below the centre of Canal Street, from the Crown Courts through to London Road roundabout, locating all incoming drainage spurs from the site – some 25 in total.
The ‘point of work’ monitoring & sonar tracing teams used escape breathing sets for the prolonged working, having flexibility and comfort for such a duration of intense work.
Once located, all connections were sonar-traced from inside the sewer – right up to the point where the steel piles had severed the drains leaving site – with the plan to cut minimal-sized holes in the steel-sheet piling to locate the chosen connections from the development site.
Benefit
By undertaking the “live sewer” survey and tracing, multiple road-openings within the highway were avoided.
Significant time and cost savings were achieved – with no delay to the developer or city traffic.
