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Spoil recycling helps protect ancient monument

Digger Blogger | 11:32, Wed February 14 2018

Local civil engineering contractor Danaher & Walsh was recently appointed by the Diocese of Leicester to rebuild a car park on New Street in the old quarter of Leicester, close to the city’s cathedral.

The car park is of historical significance as it is on the former site of Grey Friars Priory, the original burial place of King Richard III. It is adjacent to the council-owned car park on which the king’s remains were exhumed in 2012. In fact, the New Street car park was one of three possible sites originally identified for excavation by archaeologists from the outset of the project to locate the remains of Richard III. Danaher & Walsh’s works took place just 30 metres from the King’s original resting place.

Richard III was killed at the Battle of Bosworth in 1485 after just two years on the throne, bringing an end to the York dynasty, to be succeeded by the Welsh Tudor family.  The discovery of his final resting place attracted much media attention back in 2012. It is now the Richard III museum and the area has been designated a Scheduled Ancient Monument.

As a result, reconstruction of the cathedral car park was sensitive operation and work had to be carefully planned.  The streets around the site were narrow and the only access for large vehicles was from Peacock Lane (past the Cathedral) and into New Street.  Lorry movements in and around the site had to be kept to a minimum.

The key to this was to recycle as much material on site as possible.

To this end, they consulted Worsley Plant who sent along business development manager Andrew Purse to evaluate the site. He recommended the MB BF60 Crushing Bucket and the Remu EP3150 Screening Bucket.

 

 

Danaher & Walsh operates one of the largest Caterpillar fleets in the Midlands. The buckets were taken on hire for two weeks and fitted to two 313F excavators. They enabled the contractor to recycle excavated materials on site. First they could screen out the soil and dirt from the hardcore and then crush the hardcore to reuse – eliminating the need to bring wagons on and off site.

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Site agent Matt Walsh says:  “Every 20 tonnes recycled on site resulted in a reduction of two 20-tonne wagons off the narrow streets of the Greyfriars conservation area.  This would have been 20-tonne waste hardcore out and 20-tonne MOT coming in.

“The risk was not only the environmental issue, it was also a safety one.  The area is actually the biggest tourist attraction in the city of Leicester and is absolutely full of tourists with cameras, not looking where they are going.

“Now we’ve seen the benefits of screening and crushing on site we will definitely be considering it on future projects.  It was the perfect solution this time and the service and support from Worsley Plant exceeded our expectations.”

 

 

 

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