Flexible pipes irrigate tricky site in Kings Lynn

A project started by King’s Lynn Council and housing developer Lovells is on the way to building 600 needed homes after laying flexible HDPE pipes from Asset Weholite.

The site in Gaywood, East of Lynn, is typical of local geology with soft clayey ground, which is very compressible.

As underground utilities can sink, the site was problematic for Lovells to stop uneven water channels, with use of the heavy concrete chambers used for ongoing access to pipework.

Piling is a common solution to strengthening the load capacity of traditional foundations, but it requires deep drilling, which adds extra labour and costs.

As the site managers used a custom Weholite pipes solution to use the flexibility of HDPE plastic to allow the products to move with the ground, negating use of piling and saving time and money.

Roger Bowers, Lovell Ground Manager, said: “Weholite provided an effective solution to the threat of settlement and the team at Asset played an important part in supporting us to tackle some of the intricate challenges that this project presented.”

Asset provided 70 custom manholes across the storm-water, foul and culvert network at Orchard Place, with over 840 metres of Weholite pipes were fabricated off-site and delivered in sizes varying from 400mm diameter to 900mm diameter.

Jonny Johnson, Asset International Technical Sales Engineer, said: “The Orchard Place project is the first phase in an ambitious and challenging five-year housing development by Lovell and the local Council and it is our hope that our innovative Weholite water management solutions will be used throughout the entirety of the process.

“Thanks to recent investment in new technologies at our factory we have been able to supply an unprecedented amount of our smaller scale diameter pipes and fabrications for this development, which has made this multifaceted project a stimulating one to map out and implement.”