12th October 2006 - Tarmac creates car park capable of storing rainwater
Tarmac has constructed an environmentally-friendly car park, capable of storing thousands of litres of rainwater, as a sustainable solution for a new community centre in Bristol, which is due to open this month.
The 2,000m2 car park adjoins the new Withywood Centre in Queen's Road, Bristol, which has been constructed by a community-led design and build team including representatives from South Bristol Church and Community Trust; the local Primary Care Trust; the Hartcliffe and Withywood Community Partnership and Bristol City Council. The centre provides services and facilities for local people, including a youth centre, healthy-living centre, two cafes, advice centre, church, crèche and venues for hire.
A novel example of sustainable development on a local scale, the Withywood Centre car park includes a variety of environmentally-friendly design features including porous asphalt layers, an in-built weir system which forms part of the reservoir layer providing increased storage capacity and inlet pipes to transfer rainwater from the roof.
Tarmac's contract team worked closely with the design and build team to develop a porous surfacing solution for the car park capable of storing rainwater in an aggregate reservoir, before releasing it slowly back into the environment. This innovative solution protects the local community from the potential risk of localised flash flooding caused by excessive rainfall entering existing drainage channels. It also provides an opportunity for the stored grey water supplies to be captured and re-used in the future.
Andy Jones, Tarmac National Contracting's business development manager, said:
"This is an exciting project that showcases sustainable technologies in a very practical way. "
"Our porous surfacing solution has been developed following extensive research and development to develop a type of asphalt layer capable of allowing the water to disperse through it into the aggregate reservoir. The solution is ideal for car parks, driveways, light traffic areas and pedestrian pavements in particular."
The aggregate reservoir, which stores the rainwater, is made from a graded limestone product specially designed for use in the construction of large tanks of this type. This limestone base provides a stable platform on which to construct the required asphalt layers.
In the future, the Withywood Centre could choose to draw from the stored rainwater and re-use it for watering landscaped areas.
Andy Jones adds:
"This porous pavement technology is flexible and if designed in at an early stage could even be used to provide grey water supplies for domestic use as well as for general watering."
