Taunton Park and Ride

Construction Only Award

Project Team:

Client: Somerset County Council
Contractor: Bardon Contracting

 

The project The project was to construct a new Park and Ride facility at Junction 25 of the M5 to provide spaces for 1,000 vehicles and bus stops for services into Taunton, Somerset.

Sustainable Construction

Earthworks
A major operation was required to reduce the existing Greenfield site to the correct levels. During the planning stages of the project, Bardon Contracting and Somerset Council worked together to develop a balance earthworks design to minimise the amount of soil removed from the site. By amending the initial vertical design, the team were able to re-use approximately 55,400 tonnes of soil on-site, thus reducing waste to landfill. The redesign also resulted in the elimination of a potential 4,300 lorry movements and over 100 tonnes of carbon being produced.

Responsible sourcing
In line with the contractor’s Responsible Sourcing policy, all aggregate based construction materials were supplied from internal sources. This ensured that the source of each raw material could be completely verified and overseen during the production process.

Sustainable drainage
The original design for the car park was block paving. This was amended to a solution combining a free draining granular fill stone drainage mat containing recycled aggregates overlaid with a proprietary drain asphalt porous surface. This design allowed for the drainage from the car park to manoeuvre through a series of flow controls and landscaped attenuation ponds.

Biodiversity
Log piles created from onsite tree and vegetation clearance operations enhanced the biodiversity of the wetland and landscaped area of the facility. In addition, cleared BT telegraph poles from the site were re-erected within the wetland areas to allow bat boxes to be fitted to promote the local bat population.

Landscaping
To complete the project, extensive planting of 4,200 trees, 12,700 shrubs and 3600 aquatic plants around a balancing pond area, were introduced. The overall natural habitat was increased by 15% compared to the original basic green land. Once fully established the extensive site landscaping should contribute to the local biodiversity.