GPSJ Autumn 2024 ONLINE - Flipbook - Page 11
ROADS & HIGHWAYS
GPSJ
Acute hospital build project demonstrates
growing importance of drainage innovation to
meet completion and sustainability targets
Specialist drainage techniques have provided vital support for a project to build a new critical care
unit at an acute hospital while allowing clinical teams to continue to deliver services for patients.
Lanes Drainage Services UK,
part of Lanes Group, installed
a sewer liner cured with LED
light because it was the fastest
and least disruptive way to
rehabilitate the pipe inside a
hospital building.
Its drainage engineers also helped
groundworkers clean and survey the
site’s drainage system using a jet
vac tanker that can filter and reuse
its water, increasing productivity and
reducing the task’s carbon footprint
The company’s contribution
illustrates how specialised and
innovative drainage techniques are
increasingly important where complex
construction projects need to meet
challenging completion deadlines and
sustainability targets
Drainage engineers from the Lanes
Chester depot delivered the project
for J A Burke Construction, working
for Integrated Health Projects (IHP), a
joint venture between VINCI Building
and Sir Robert McAlpine.
IHP Project Manager Gordon
McCartin said: “Lanes Group’s work
has provided valuable specialist input
into our drainage design process for
the new hospital development.
“We were also impressed with the
way its lining team responded flexibly,
with dynamic working methods, in
using a drainage access point that
was within a live fire escape route.
They showed their experience in
completing their work on time.”
Lanes Area Development
Manager Jana Baker said: “Carrying
out drainage investigations and
remediation is one of the critical first
steps to large building projects like
this.
“It’s also central to our offer as a
business. We can bring together
expert teams and specialist assets in
any required combination, where and
when they’re needed.”
Lanes Drainage Services UK is
the network services arm of Lanes
Group, the UK’s largest water utilities
and drainage company, which
also delivers digital broadband and
commercial EV charging station
infrastructure services.
A key task for its team was to
install a 27-metre long liner in a
150mm diameter cast iron foul sewer
serving the hospital’s accident and
emergency department.
A CCTV drainage survey had
shown the pipe was heavily
corroded, increasing the risk of
blockages, and both leaks and water
ingress.
A Picote Miller remote-access
mechanical pipe cleaner was first
used to scour the inside of the pipe,
to remove corroded material.
Lanes Group’s Sewer Rehabilitation
and Lining Division then installed an
LED light cured in place pipe (CIPP)
liner to create a new pipe within a
pipe, with a design life of 50 years.
The liner – made from flexible
glass-fibre matting combined with a
specialist resin – had to be installed
from a chamber outside the building
to another located in a public corridor
inside A&E department.
LED CIPP lining was selected
because, using this technique, the
Lanes Group team only needed
continuous access to the external
chamber, to invert the liner into the
pipe with compressed air.
Installing no-dig LED liners is
energy-efficient, creates very little
waste, and avoids the need for
pipes to be excavated and replaced,
making them highly sustainable
solutions.
Projects can also be completed
in the shortest possible time,
making them ideal for rehabilitating
wastewater pipes in extremely busy,
live environments, like hospitals.
The Lanes Chester team also
cleaned and surveyed the insitu drainage system across the
development site, giving construction
teams a highly accurate drainage
system map for the development site.
They used a recycler jet vac tanker,
which is over 60% more productive
than a standard vehicle.
The work at Royal Shrewsbury
Hospital (RSH) is part of the Hospitals
Transformation Programme being
delivered by the Shrewsbury and
Telford Hospital NHS Trust, and
include creating a new critical care
unit.
It will also create improved
consultant-led maternity and neonatal services, a new children’s
centre, with inpatient and surgery
facilities, a new main entrance, and
around 100 extra parking spaces.
GOVERNMENT AND PUBLIC SECTOR JOURNAL AUTUMN 2024
11
