Page 4 - W M Donald Newsletter - Edition Eleven

Mud, mud and (not so) glorious mud!
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W M Donald is working with its client, Bancon, on Phase 2A of the Maidencraig project off the Lang Stracht (A944) on the Western edge of Aberdeen.
The project encompasses a mix of flats and houses, with a total of 60 units. It’s a fairly standard housing development, including the construction of access roads and sewers which tie in to the Phase 1 sewer network. However, as Flanders and Swann sang in the Hippopotamus Song, mud, mud and (not so) glorious mud!
Austen Brooks is the Project Manager at Maidencraig:
‘We started on site in February when the ground, primarily consisting of blue clay, was frozen solid, but when the frost thawed due to rain and snow in March the ground conditions turned to the consistency of slurry. The worst ground conditions I have encountered in my career.
My first priority was to remove the ‘slurry’. At one point we had three bucket excavators working in tandem to clear it. We made extensive use of bog mats to help plant move around the site.
The poor conditions had an impact on both the road and sewer construction. The road had to be dug out to
1.5m – even deeper in areas - and filled with ground improver and a capping layer. With the sewer, we had to dig down to the sewer line and lay infill to give the sewers something robust and stable to sit on.
The main sewer pipe was 375mm concrete pipe which acted in a way like a land drain and helped to dry up the ground. The sewer gradually reduced in size from 300mm, to 225mm, and finally 150mm; all in plastic. Raymond Ferrier was the Sewer Foreman and he and his team deserve immense credit for the effort they put in given the wet weather and difficult ground conditions.
The client was keen to build the show home early so the foundations were laid ahead of the other properties and it will be opening in May. By the end of April we had sixteen foundations in place and nine concrete floors. We will also be doing the hard landscaping on the site.
I’m expecting all the Phase 2A infrastructure to be completed by the end of May. It will probably take another three years or so until all the phases have been completed.
Looking at the site now, it’s amazing how things have changed. I certainly don’t want to encounter mud like that again for a long, long time!’