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( to Land + Water’ s facility at Rainham Marshes for reuse), and currently the £ 15-million complex deconstruction of the final, temporary river structures. He outlines the challenge posed by London’ s historic sewer design and how Tideway is creating a massive underground storage tunnel to hold and treat stormwater to help clean up the river. The deconstruction of the massive, temporary cofferdams at Chambers Wharf and King Edward Memorial Gardens have involved complex underwater excavation- subsea cutting of huge concrete piles, deep sheet pile extraction and structure removal- and all in the live watercourse where strict environmental controls mean that nothing at all can be left or dropped in the river.
Outlining how recent years have shaped growth, James clarifies that negotiated contracts drive much of Land + Water’ s momentum. He notes that the company’ s experience has proved invaluable to these contracts:“ Currently, we’ re working on another major infrastructure project. We were invited by the client to come up with a solution in a very inaccessible corner of the site where the ground conditions are appalling. We proposed a kind of reverse logic way of delivering it.”
Part of the construction area sits on boggy ground and is crossed by a river within a highly sensitive location. Land + Water is responsible for critical enabling works, safely diverting the river, and installing piling to isolate the site so surrounding habitats remain protected. Crucially, it’ s also providing the bridge abutments for a new six-lane-wide access bridge to cross the river and access the working area.“ We’ re helping preserve the environment and isolate the working areas to enable the conventional heavy civils operations to follow on,” James explains.
▼ Dredging project- Blenheim Palace lake restoration
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