Project: College of Policing - Bramshill

ALRO shows how small companies can take on Major contracts

ALRO Services Ltd., specialist sewage and waste water engineers recently won a large contract to design and construct a complete sewage system for the Police Staff Training College based in Hampshire.

The project delivered the replacement of 3 existing defunct sewage treatment facilities with a single new Wastewater Treatment Plant manufactured by by WPL Limited. The new High Performance Aerated Filter, was designed to cater for a 1250 population equivalent community and function without loss of discharge quality in a 1:100 year storm event.Even though they were competing against much larger companies ALRO were selected due to the expertise they displayed when faced with a complex design situation.

ALRO using their 30 years of experience in the domestic and public sector put together a bespoke design to incorporate all the existing treatment Systems into just one that met with all the Environment Agency’s Permit requirements.

This had the added bonus of saving the client considerable money as they were able to continue treating their own sewage on site, without having to store and pump it to the nearest treatment works in Hartley Witney.

There were however complications that ALRO had to overcome;

No concession on the Discharge Permit existed for storm water overflow. Given that the building is a grade one listed building the separation of surface and storm water was not an option.

This meant that the storage of such flows needed to be incorporated into the overall design. ALRO used a practical and simplistic design which would require no maintenance to deal with this huge amount of storm water should it occur. This proved to be a key design point.

 

The area in which the new Treatment Plant was to be installed, had a Grade 1 listed ancient wall and Grade 2 listed cottage present. ALRO not only had extremely limited space in which to locate the new system as it was between these two ancient structures, but they also had to excavate alongside the listed wall which had no foundations. This proved to be a delicate undertaking as the wall was at risk from the digging which at times was as close as 2 metres, as well as vibration from the 90 tonne pilling rig used during the project which could have caused the wall to come tumbling down.

ALRO literally had to sandwich all the brickwork for the wall and cottage between scaffolding so it was fully supported with no room for movement. Every crack in the wall was tagged and monitored to track for any slight shift, a millimetre in difference could have jeopardized the whole project

During this huge undertaking the client was saved further time and money by ALRO having specialist knowledge to use what was already in place and re-route existing flows to keep the site fully operational at all times. 

Robin Weiss, Managing Director of ALRO Services said “What gives us smaller companies an advantage to the client is our ability to problem solve and be creative, instead of just putting in unnecessary new equipment.”

 

Whilst on site ALRO were also asked to investigate the Surface Water Drainage of the Jacobean Mansion as the building was suffering from serious damp issues and would have continued to deteriorate. If left. ALRO weren’t specialists in historic structures but had the confidence to ‘turn their hand to anything drainage related’.

By bringing in other authorities like English Heritage they were able to work together to protect the mansion from further decay and protect it for the future Work had to be carried out with care and sensitivity. No mechanical diggers could be used close to the house so every trench was dug by hand.

The project had further constraints with the existence of a ancient pond with particular ecological importance supporting great crested newts which had to be protected with extreme care especially when de-watering the site.

Every successful completion enhances the skills base of the firm and Bramshill was no exception. Director Robin Weiss said,"ALRO is looking forward with the successful completion of Bramshill tucked firmly under our belt".