Waterhead Close, Ambleside

Waterhead Close is a development of 12 market-led  and 11 affordable dwellings on a site at Ambleside, Cumbria. The site was problematic, as the upper parts of the site were steep, with rock present at shallow level while the lower levels of the site were flat lying, with deep deposits of extremely soft, saturated material.

A steep access road had to be constructed, requiring the construction of a curved, 5m reinforced retaining wall on highly variable ground.

Due to the levels required to allow the construction of an attenuated drainage system and the poor ground, a 4m retaining wall needed to be constructed to restrain the adopted  main access road. This was achieved using a reinforced earth retaining wall constructed with the Webwall system, providing a vegetated face to this highly visible element. The underlying poor subsoil was removed down to bed rock with levels being brought back up to original ground level with 4m of 6A material laid underwater.

The area of low lying poor ground has been designed to provide a detention pond for the adjacent watercourse to ensure the flood regime of this watercourse is maintained as it was in its natural state.

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Tweddell & Slater Ltd

Consulting Civil and Structural Engineers
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