Ground Engineering

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Preparing the ground for infrastructure and buildings

With varied geology and land use history, the UK has a wide-ranging set of ground conditions. That means almost every project calls for sound understanding and innovative engineering to optimise development solutions.

Our Ground Engineering teams work with clients across all sectors, from water, energy, and transport infrastructure to masterplan sites, mixed-use programs, and industrial schemes. We help develop greenfield sites and regenerate brownfield sites for homes, schools, and other community uses.

Our teams integrate services from environmental, geotechnical, hydrogeological, and material management specialists to prepare your site for the future—while reducing impact on today’s resources. We can be there for you from initial site due diligence through site investigation, risk assessment, geotechnical design, and more.

Using the latest data collation tools and spatial analysis, we distil complex sites—including strata and groundwater conditions—into readily digestible outputs that everyone can understand and use. This helps with early identification of risks, an important part in establishing the viability of a site and planning how the project moves forward. This information also helps us establish the most efficient remedial design strategy and earthworks solution to support a proposed development site.

Focusing on commercial awareness and a partnership mentality means we can deliver approaches such as phased remedial strategies, the sustainable re-use of materials in ground improvement, foundation re-use, enhanced nature-based techniques for remediation, or simply zone the least sensitive areas of a wide and complex site.

If you need practical, pragmatic, and innovative solutions, we can help.

Contaminated land

We have a proven track record of turning challenging brownfield sites into viable development opportunities. How do we start? By characterising site conditions to understand risk and determine the appropriate remedial solutions. Our geo-environmental engineers and scientists deliver a remedial strategy that is lean, achieves regulatory approval, and makes the ongoing development programme viable. Whether you need initial appraisals, intrusive investigation, risk assessment, or remediation, we can help.

Geohazards

Geohazards include landslides, ground cavities, rockfalls, ground subsidence, and erosive forces. These hazards pose risks to new and existing developments, infrastructure, and people. We have experience in the assessment and mitigation of geohazards—developing resilient and adaptive solutions for risky ground. Our Natural Cavities and Mining Databases allow rapid assessment of the potential for instability as part of our extensive and longstanding geohazards services. Read More

Geotechnical engineering

We provide geotechnical expertise across the development spectrum, advising on materials management and compliance with waste regulations. We deliver ground investigation works, undertake concept and detailed design, and provide site support and quality control during construction. Do you need designs for foundations, retaining walls, embankments, slope stability, or structural loads? We can help. Plus, when it comes to reducing carbon impacts, we can help you keep materials on-site with a sustainable earthworks strategy.

Hydrogeology

In the interaction between ground engineering and groundwater, our hydrogeologists assess risks to controlled waters from discharges, excavations, proposed construction activities, heat, and contaminated land during site assessment and construction. We use analytical and modelling tools in groundwater risk assessments and provide expertise to inform ground source energy schemes—and to design and manage dewatering, pumping tests, and discharge of groundwater in greenfield and brownfield projects.

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