Charter Street, Leicester

The new, state-of-the-art £4.5 million multi-purpose arena is to be built through a joint venture of Leicester Riders basketball team, Leicester City Council and Leicester College.

The 11500m2 former Gasworks site required an extensive remediation project to be undertaken, ensuring all historic contamination was removed prior to the construction phase of the development. This involved VHE carrying out onsite bioremediation, offsite disposal and the re-engineering made ground.

The reclamation works undertaken by VHE included general site clearance and the excavation of residual floor slabs, foundations and below-ground structures, with concrete hard standing and sub-base materials being reprocessed for re-use onsite. A key element of the works was the excavation and removal of a substantial area of spent oxide contaminated soils. Made ground was excavated in order to treat or remove any underlying contamination. This was excavated to a depth of between 2 to 3m or to the base of contamination, limited by groundwater levels.