The cleanup of some of Europe's most contaminated site went a step closer his month with local authority planning permission. B&E hears from the consortium charged with the most challenging jobs in the business.

BRITAIN might have been the birthplace of the industrial revolution, but if it is to undergo an environmental revolution it will have to clean up its past. The National Coalfields Programme plans to restore heavily polluted land to living, working and recreational space.

Possibly the biggest challenge for the programme is the cleanup of the former Avenue Coking Works in Chesterfield, one of the most heavily contaminated sites in Europe.

Consortium VSD Avenue is charged with cleaning up the site. The consortium consists of civil engineering contractor Volker Stevin, environmental contractor and remediation specialists DEC and Sita Remediation.

The Avenue project moved forward this month, when VSD Avenue obtained planning permission from Derbyshire County Council for the remediation of the site.

The planning application, submitted by Entec on behalf of the consortium detailed the complex remediation of the 98 ha site, which will see 500,000m3 of heavy contamination treated onsite. This will include the thermal treatment of very heavily contaminated material and bio-remediation of less contaminated soils containing hydrocarbons.

The regeneration of the former industrial site will take approximately five years and involve the excavation of approximately two million cubic metres of material. It includes the cleanup of two silt lagoons, a registered asbestos waste tip and ground pollution caused by heavy metals and waste chemicals. A commitment by the project team to sustainable regeneration will ensure that most of the treated material will be reused onsite.

“We have been working on this site for more than a year now, carrying out intensive ground investigations, researching new technology and finalising areas of the design,” says Alan Gerrett, Volker Stevin business development director. “The success of the planning application is a fantastic achievement and milestone for the project team.”

Gerrett adds that the planning permission is a vote of confidence from its client as it finds ways around the difficult cleanup of the site. “There are very few sites that offer the challenges that The Avenue does,” he says. “This successful planning application shows that we have found innovative and sustainable ways to realise the client’s ambitions.”

Regeneration of the site is funded by English Partnerships’ National Coalfields Programme and is being managed by East Midlands Development Agency, which owns the land.

The National Coalfields Programme has invested £379m to assist former coalfields communities recover from the decline of the coal industry. Ten years after its introduction, the programme now covers more than 100 sites and spans 4,300 ha. The programme has so far attracted £670m of private investment, resulting in a total investment figure of £1.04bn.

Volker Stevin says the planning permission for The Avenue is a milestone for the scheme. The company says The Avenue will help to bring new jobs, homes and places for business to develop as well as creating an environment for the protection of local wildlife and space for recreation.

“The remediation of this site will act as a showcase for some exciting new remediation technologies and environmental best practice,” says DEC UK managing director Guy Pomphrey. “The state of the art equipment required would itself take some months to construct and prepare.”

Pomphrey adds that the consortium has the capacity to carry out the work itself without calling in subcontractors.

“The remediation work will be carried out by VSD Avenue’s inhouse teams and equipment without the need for specialist subcontractors so with our resources already in place we hope to be onsite in 2008,” he says.

The remediation of The Avenue site will provide 23 ha of mixeduse development land. The remaining land will be landscaped by VSD Avenue to provide new public open space, new wildlife habitats and sporting facilities.

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