The new £130m state of the art manufacturing facility for an internationally renound aerospace and defence group.
The manufacturing hall comprises of 330,000 sqft steel portal frame building and 110,000 sqft offices split over 2 floors.
The new facility will see the aerospace firm centralise its operations. Foundations will be mass concrete bases on pre-prepared platform to form a balanced cut and fill plateu.
The drainage strategy has free discharge to a site wide system including attenuation ponds outside the site boundary.

The scheme consisted of a brand-new state of the art facility that is fully compliant with modern animal welfare standards.
The main pennage building consists of 5 continuous bays of different span duo-pitch portal frames, while the sales rings are formed of 1 mono-pitch portal frame span perpendicular to that of the main building.
The pennage area is both clad on the perimeter and split into segregated areas internally by precast concrete panels. To enable easy entry of livestock from the external yard the one gable end of the building is completely open.
Also included in this project was a new increased width access road, calf drop off lane and external concrete service yard and drop off zone.
Both the existing storm and foul water systems needed to be diverted and renewed as part of the development.
Melton Mowbray Cattle Market has a unique feel to it with its 1000-year history and town centre presence.

For this project, full drainage models were created for both the storm and foul, incorporating the restricted discharge rates for the storm and resulting attenuation requirements. Due to the nature of the project, siphonic drainage was specified to enable the maximum efficiency in distributing the flows from the roof areas to the proposed drainage. Petrol interceptors were sized and specified for the project, ensuring that only clean storm flows outfall to the existing watercourse. CWA worked alongside the design team discussing ground improvement, enabling works & infrastructure requirements and as part of the initial design. The team subsequently carried out tender designs for all of the civil and structural engineering aspects coordinating with the wider team during tender period.

After the tender stage CWA were novated to the successful contractor and have carried out detailed design for all non-specialist design items whilst assisting coordination with the specialist items such as the dock levellers and precast stair cases.

The overall 65 acre former Rolls Royce East Works site was purchased by St Francis Group & Marcol Industrial in 2007 and has undergone major demolition and remediation works to develop the site.

CWA were appointed to carry out civil and structural engineering design for all plots within the phases A-D portion of the site. The initial phases include 15 industrial and warehouse units with a total area of 580,000 sqft and with provision for future subdivision of the units to reflect market conditions.

CWA worked with the wider team to discuss a number of approaches to enabling works, infrastructure requirements and ground improvement as part of the early design. The team subsequently carried out tender designs for all on-plot civil and structural engineering aspects and liaised with the wider team during tender negotiations. CWA were also novated to the successful contractor and have carried out detailed design for all non-specialist design items and assisting coordination of contractor design elements.

The buildings are typically steel portal frames with mezzanines to provide office space, with pad foundations supported on vibro stone columns.

The facility will be responsible for the production of the new hybrid powered taxi, followed shortly after by a full eco-friendly electric version.

Keeping in with the eco-friendly criteria of the product being assembled at the facility, the building itself had to be as eco-friendly as possible and therefore one of many eco-friendly products used was the addition of PV panels across the entire roof area of the production area.

Foundations were mass and reinforced concrete bases on vibro treated improved ground.

The use of lime and cement stablization and vibro treated ground also enabled a ground bearing slab to be adopted, resulting in considerable cost savings.
The drainage strategy included a ‘on site’ surface water attenuation system that was designed to facilitate and include for using the infrastructure ponds and swales that existed on the site prior to the development being built.

The steelwork framed building will enable RACE to conduct R&D into many applications of remote handling and robotic technology, already used to great effect at the JET fusion facility at Culham.

The project was constructed as a two phase development. Phase 1 was constructed in 2007 at a cost of £5.9m with phase 2 extension following in 2014 at a cost of £3.6m.

Due to the poor ground conditions vibro ground improvement techniques were utilised. Due to the previous use of the site and prior to vibro works taking place a ‘proof dig’ of the site was completed with any remaining tanks or cellars removed and backfilled.

The structural frame comprised a steel portal frame solution spanning 35m with underslung laundry bagging system. A clear span composite sheet external cladding system was utilised to avoid the use of internal sheeting rails.

The ground floor construction comprised an insitu ground bearing slab solution with a large external service yard area designed for HGV use.

A fully braced trussed solution was adopted to achieve the clear span requirements of the end users. This challenging site required extensive ground modelling in order to minimise the volume of materials to be exported from site. Vibro compaction techniques are to be used in order to facilitate the use of a ground bearing slab construction.

The existing area is subject to historical mining activities and the site is to be drill and grouted accordingly, which will include the filling and grouting of two existing mine entry shafts.

CWA have produced a full Revit 3d model of the project, as featured on the adjacent video.

For further information regarding this project please contact Dave Copeland, Project Director.

The high bay warehouse included an FM2 floor slab with specialist racking installation, along with a two storey element which housed welfare facilities for staff and drivers.

The site had a number of challenges associated with its development including major service diversions, flood plain alleviation and canal retention.

For further information please contact Dave Copeland, Project Director.

The project comprised of a major earth works exercise to release 50% of the site from the flood plain in which it was located, the creation of a new secondary river channel to provide flood compensation storage and the stabilisation of 90,000m3 of sewage sludge.

All the highways and infrastructure were designed to adoptable standards, including a new foul water pumping station.

A balancing pond with reed beds allied to the new river channel provided a 50m wide environmental corridor.

To date over one million sq ft of the warehouse’s have been constructed on this site.