SUSTAINABLE drain cleaning technology deployed by Lanes Group has supported the installation of a ‘super-thin’ source control stormwater attenuation system, which has reportedly saved the NHS considerable costs during the construction of a new hospital car park.
The system, manufactured in the UK, has also contributed to the NHS’s net zero commitments – in part by preventing the need to excavate and move hundreds of tonnes of earth and foundation aggregate.
Drainage engineers at the Lanes Manchester depot used a recycler jet vac tanker to clean silt traps in the giant water tank.
SEL Environmental installed its Formavoid sustainable drainage system (SuDS) at the North Manchester General Hospital for Morgan Sindall Construction. The tank sits within the car park’s subbase and holds rainwater while it is released into the surface water drainage system in a controlled way to prevent flooding.
SEL Environmental commissioned Lanes to clean 18 sumps that trap silt before the water enters the tank and to carry out a CCTV drainage survey.
Morgan Sindall has built the 964-space car park as part of £36.5 million of enabling works ahead of the wider rebuilding of the hospital estate.
Ian Clapham, Lanes Manchester area development manager, said, “We’ve been delighted to support SEL Environmental in what is a truly awesome water attenuation scheme for this car park development.
“Installing a water storage system in this way delivers huge environmental and financial benefits and we’re glad that we’ve contributed to a very sustainable project with our own energy and resource efficient water jetting technology.”
SEL Environmental was tasked with designing and installing the stormwater attenuation system needed to manage water run-off from the car park located on an already intensively used site.
The firm designed a low carbon subbase system, incorporating its patented Formavoid technology to capture water within the foundation layer of the car park.
The Formavoid system is made from 100% recycled plastic. It integrates within an open-graded subbase to ‘enhance the void ratio of aggregate, improve stability and reduce construction depths’.
Despite being just 100mm thick, the solution installed at Manchester General Hospital could hold 300 cubic metres of water.
SEL Environmental MD Andy Shuttleworth added, “One lorry-load of our Formavoid system replaces 37 lorryloads of foundation material, so that’s a lot of truck movements and material saved. Those savings can be added to the resource, time, energy and cost savings made by not having to construct a large attenuation tank, and contributes to a significant reduction in the project’s carbon footprint. So, we were very pleased to have been able to present this solution.
“Once our tank is in place, the only task necessary is to clean the silt traps so the water can flow freely through the system.”
