Longcross data centre enabling works

The brief:

This enabling phase of the works redevelops the existing site for future delivery of a new Data Centre and associated plant, landscaping, parking and circulation space. These works comprised of: Site strip and removal/crushing of onsite existing building slabs, construction of a new access onto the site, installation of a new piled retaining wall structure on the western site boundary and reduced level excavation. The retaining wall comprised of 283 number 900mm diameter concrete injected contiguous wall piles. The reduced level dig involved the removal of over 70k m3 of material.

Key challenges:

• Neighbours’ buildings less than 10m away from our boundary piled wall
• Noise sensitive filming by film studio being undertaken during our works
• Reducing the impact of a high-volume of vehicle movements to neighbours & residents within the local community

The solution:

• Vibration monitoring used to ensure our works didn’t impact on the building, or building users
• Daily liaison with film studio, including re-programming of noisy operations outside sensitive filming times during the working day
• Vehicle movements were restricted, consideration of vehicle routes, size of vehicles and numbers of vehicles at any time ensuring roads were kept clear at all times