Cromwell Wood News June 2017

Housing

We have been advising on the remediation of an old quarry to enable the site to be filled with selected earth works material from the construction and demolition waste streams. The material will be selected by our engineers and then compacted under their supervision to provide a development platform and soakaways to allow the dispersal of rain water to ground.

Our surveyors continue to advise on housing sites for SME Builders and we are involved in five sites in Yorkshire dealing with engineering the formation levels, flood risk, drainage, brownfield regeneration and geotechnical support.

Excavation of limestone - cromwellwood.orgExcavation of limestone for re-compaction for a housing development in West Yorkshire

We are also looking at the minerals beneath the sites for extraction as some of the minerals are safeguarded and a mining report is required on the quality of the rock / sand and gravel / fireclay and coal.

We continued to complete coal mining risk assessments in Yorkshire and Lancashire through the spring and our mining engineers are now involved in filling and capping off three shafts after investigating the previous mine owner’s shaft capping and treatment. These shafts have now been filled in and capped off to the British Coal Corporation’s Standard “Brown Book” and the buildings are being refurbished for residential development.

concrete caps for shafts - cromwellwood.orgCompleting the concrete caps for shafts near housing development in Calderdale

We have completed a number of phase 1 and phase 2 investigations for SME builders and self build clients over the spring and site works are about the commence in July 2017 on a barn conversion and the erection of 39 houses on a former quarry .

Commercial Development

Our engineers advised on the design and groundworks for a large portal frame building that is being built in the exposed coal field where there have been shallow coal mine workings and two seams are known to be within 10 metres of the surface. A successful solution has been designed for the slab and ground conditions and work is to begin later this year. Our engineers will supervise the excavation works and provide a validation report to the Planning Authority.

We have carried some ground investigations works on a former colliery site to assess whether the site can be upgraded to a football field and training area with club house. We have considered a number of options for site investigation including geo physics and shallow trial pits. Further information is being collected on samples of strata and made ground to assess the suite of engineering works required and the capping off of an old shaft. They should be playing football next year on the regraded land.

Quarrying

We are involved in a number of minerals development opportunities which include planning advice, reserve assessment, environmental permitting and valuation. Our planning team is project managing 5 applications at this present time for aggregate, buildings stone and clay.

Our Chartered Surveyors are assisting land owners with negotiations with quarrying companies on royalties, wayleaves and rights of way on 2 sites at the present time as the market of construction minerals builds up to meet the demand for housing and infrastructure.

Geotechnical Assessment

Our engineers are supervising the completion of the construction of a buttress against a quarry face as part of the restoration of the site as part of our ongoing service agreement with our client. We are designing the next stage of the quarry development and looking at the geotechnical issues and reserve assessment.

cromwellwood.org

Fireclay

We have identified 3 sources of good quality brick earth and fireclay for the brick making industry with reserves of over 250,000 tonnes which is currently available with planning permissions and permits. These sites are currently being sampled to provide a blend of fireclay and brick shale on trial runs which hopefully will lead to a steady supply of 30,000 tonnes of fireclay per year to the heavy clay industry.

There are a number of housing sites that contain reserves of mudstone and fireclay beneath them that can be used for bricks or pipes which we are assessing at the present time as safeguarded minerals. These clays can also be used for engineering material in flood defence or for capping contaminated sites. The amount immediately available is in excess of 30,000 cubic metres.

We would like to thank all our clients for their continued business and we are looking forward to working with them through the summer and autumn whilst the weather is good.

Our clients include:

Marshalls Natural Stone
Marshalls Aggregates
Marshalls PLC
Went Valley Aggregates and Recycling Limited
Hawksworth Estates
Pond Quarry Stone Company
Rand and Asquith (Aceblade) Limited
MSS Yorkstone Limited
W.S.Crossley (Yorkstone) Limited
Greens Natural Stone Products Limited
Curtis Power Limited
J.G.Pears Limited
Mone Brothers Excavations Limited
J White (T.D.E) Limited
Lightwater Holdings Limited
D. Noble Limited
Ash Tree Fine Developments.