Bardon Waste Transfer Station

Leicestershire County Council is a waste disposal authority, meaning they handle waste collected at the kerbside by local district councils, as well as what is collected via its recycling and household waste sites.

The county had two waste transfer stations that were operating at capacity, which drove the council’s decision to build a waste transfer station in Bardon. The new facility is the largest of the three, with plans to accept c.60,000 tonnes of waste per year.

A key consideration for the council was creating a facility that would allow them to deal with its waste in the most environmentally friendly and efficient way possible, reducing the amount of waste sent to landfill.

Take a walk around Bardon Waste Transfer Station…

Environmentally friendly approach

In line with the Council’s desire to make waste disposal as environmentally friendly as possible, we included several design features to make the facility’s operations more environmentally friendly.

It has solar panels and an energy-efficient office building (which includes sensor lighting, and water-saving taps and toilets). There are also electric vehicle charging points at the premises for its employees to make use of.

During construction, 97% of waste was diverted from landfill and we made use of an excavation material reuse plan that resulted in zero excavation waste. Any waste that wasn’t suitable for this project was taken by Plaza (our groundworks contractors) for further use elsewhere.

Providing expertise from design to delivery

Waste transfer stations are highly specialised, so a key part of the project’s success was having a design team that understood the intricacies of such projects and the challenges they pose.

Our in-house experts led detailed conversations around design from the very early stages of the project, with early feasibility work leading to design changes that would have been costly to rectify if identified at a later stage.

This engagement continued throughout the process, with ongoing conversations with the customer’s operational and management teams ensuring that they were happy with both the design and functionality of the station.

Facilities available

The site is laid out in the most appropriate way, allowing efficient disposal of waste. It includes two fully equipped weighbridges, a jet wash, external service yards of c6000m², two areas of waste storage across 2450m², an external canopy building, and an office and welfare building.

The office and welfare building houses a canteen, offices and wash facilities.

Flexibility, functionality and resilience

The facility is designed to give the best possible mix of resilience and flexibility, allowing the customer to adapt its functionality to meet changing market conditions.

The main building was designed in the context of its surrounding area, with a structural steel frame, single skin profiled cladding and concrete push walls.

The waste bays are divided by 5m tall precast concrete Alfabloc® walls. These ‘A’ shaped walls can be used without fixings which allows bay sizes to be altered in a matter of minutes.

With the use of heavy machinery to move the waste around the facility, we also installed a specialist hard-wearing floor that is resistant to abrasion.

Safety at the station

Given the nature of the station, fire safety has been a critical consideration in this build. The site features a category four sprinkler system and makes use of a thermal imaging system. The thermal imaging system has two pre-set temperature alerts that, in the event they trigger, will prompt employees to take preventative action against fires that may build up in waste piles.

Giving back to the community

Our supply chain partners were selected in line with Council’s pledges on local spend, with 54% of both labour and spend being within 20 miles of site, and 77% of all construction spend being with SMEs.

For the duration of this project, we undertook a number of initiatives in the local community. In total, we’ve delivered £1.97m in social return on investment.

We partnered with Stephenson College to work with their students, delivering workshops around health and safety, and equality, diversity and inclusion for level 2 construction students.

We also worked with the students to create a community allotment. This included running sustainability sessions to help them understand concepts including biodiversity and reclaimed materials. Once complete, the allotment will be used by the catering department, and they will create a composting area to reduce food waste from the college.

Students, teachers and Willmott Dixon representatives at the beginning of the allotment project

Other initiatives include running a five-week construction enrichment programme, providing mock interview sessions and careers guidance workshops through Leicestershire Cares (a charitable organisation that links business with schools), running 32 weeks of work experience for apprentices and enabling two local people to gain employment.