Case Studies

History

In the 1950's when the ROTOR radar project was set up, a GCI station known as RAF St.Twynnells was constructed in an R6 two level surface bunker.

After closure, the site of 20 acres was reverted back to agriculture after the RAF handed the land back to the local farmer and the majority of buildings associated with the station remained largely intact.

Requirements

As is the case with many of these former military sites, all the disused underground services remain intact and abandoned. As seen from the photos, these services are not apparent and could easily go un-noticed.

The problem with sites like these is that landowners do not realize that these services remain underground and that they could subsequently financially benefit from these assets.

Gilmerton Land Services discovered this site during research carried out by its dedicated team. The next step was to approach the owner for permission to survey the site. After the site survey a credit offer was made to the owner. This was accepted and work began to remove these services.

All disused cable was removed within a 7 day period and the ground reinstated. Approximately 30 tons of various grade cable were removed from this one site resulting in a credit of £11,000 Being paid to the farmer.

The Ardeer peninsula in Ayrshire is a gigantic sand dune - it was chosen by Alfred Nobel in 1871 as the site for his British Dynamite Factory. It soon grew into the world's largest explosives factory, making explosives for mining and quarrying, and expanding into other explosives and propellants for both civilian and military uses.

In 1926 Nobel Explosives became part of ICI (Imperial Chemical Industries) and production shifted away from Ardeer. So the factory diversified into other non-explosive products, but unfortunately these were not very successful - so a large part of the original site became derelict. However a small part of the factory still remains in operation today.

Gilmerton Land Services were awarded the contract by NPL Estates to decommission the site.

Contract Requirements:

• Isolate and cap off 15 miles of underground water mains to reduce water leakages and to recover along with 20 miles of cable
• Mass demolition of substantial unsafe structures.
• To work independently of other contractors.
• Complete removal of all unsafe debris and demolition material.

The current factory (Chemring Energetics UK Ltd (CEUK)) operating on the site needed to be isolated in every respect from the derelict area. We were able to work alongside the factory efficiently and speedily with no interference to the daily activities. Due to old piping in place significant water loss was occurring amounting to £1000s daily, this was resolved by capping off redundant sections of the pipelines and carried out with no interference of the operations in the factory In addition:

• 200 disused manholes made safe all this resulted in no cost to the client but resulted in a credit of tens of thousands of pounds from the retrieved assets.
• Provision of an efficient clean-up of these unwanted services prior to redevelopment and environmental advantages to the site.

This former Royal Ordnance explosives factory was one of the largest of its kind in Europe where GLS have removed 20,000 tons of disused underground services to date, generating several million pounds in revenue for the client.

We would add that through the course of completing this project, we were honoured in 2007 to receive a Chairman's Bronze Award for because they recognised us as people whose ideas, actions and behaviours were making BAE Systems a better, more competitive company.

Greenham Common's long association with the USAF started in April 1951 when an extensive Airfield rebuilding programme was begun, with a 10,000 foot runway and fully serviced together with the infrastructure for the 97th air refuelling squadron.

In 1980 the airfield's infrastructure was fully refurbished and part of the 1,000 acre site was chosen to be one of two sites in Britain where US cruise missiles were to be deployed. Greenham Common closed in 1989 following the signing of the INF Treaty.

A decision was made to bring the site back to "common land" (which by now parts of it were designated as SSSI). This resulted in the necessity for Gilmerton Land Services to identify and remove all underground services, including a very elaborate underground fuel system, which had to be drained and cleaned before removal.

Approximately 30 miles of underground services were removed, consisting of HV, LV, security, AFL, cables and pipelines, some of which dated back to the 1940's. All material was graded and marketed and all of the 16 electrical substations were decommissioned and removed by Gilmerton Land Services.

A former Royal Naval Explosives factory of some 1,600 acres and we successfully removed 6,000 tons of disused underground services, together with the decommissioning of 15 substations at no cost and bringing in a revenue for MoD of £50,000.

RO Chorley The Royal Ordnance Factory at Chorley was opened by HM George VI on 31st March 1939 and until 1990 produced explosives and filled bombs.

The factory was hailed the finest civil building construction in the World, employing 15,000 building workers to complete it and requiring 20 million bricks, 1 million cubic yards of concrete (which required the World's largest concrete mixer 120' high and turning out 5,000 tons of concrete in one day), 50 miles of roads and 25 miles of railway tracks.

In 1998 British Aerospace started a major decontamination and demolition programme. Gilmerton Land Services were chosen to specifically remove all disused underground services and decommission 14 major substations.

GLS's requirement was to recover 100 miles of disused power cables and water mains within this programme and the necessity to identify and retain live services within the site was of utmost importance. GLS successfully carried this out, leaving the site infrastructually tidy under the ground. GLS segregated and marketed several thousand tons of recovered material.