Infrastructure & Construction

It starts with getting the ground right. Excavating to formation, checking the ground can carry the loading it’s going to see, and building back up in layers, compacted as they go. Where the ground is soft or holding water, that gets dealt with here through drainage or a geotextile separation layer, because there is no way to correct it later from the top.

Drainage is designed alongside the levels, not after them. Gullies, channels and soakaways have to be set so water actually runs to them, which means the falls across the whole area are worked out before anything is laid. Getting this wrong is expensive to fix, since correcting a fall means taking the surface back off.

Ducting and services go in at the same stage, so that lighting columns, power, communications and anything else planned for the site have a route without a trench being cut through new surfacing six months later. Kerbs and edgings are set to hold the surfacing in place and define the finished lines, and footways and hardstanding are built to their own construction rather than as a thinner version of the road.