Vauxhall Motors Site

A £400 million regeneration project of 55 acres of the former Vauxhall Motors Car Plant near Luton. J&P are initially responsible for the Enabling Works contract. This comprises: the construction of a new 30,000m2 open hard-standing for a Vehicle Release Facility (VRF) on which General Motors (GM) will store their completed vehicles; the construction of a new 15m x 130m long reinforced concrete ramp cut through the bottom storey of the retained existing structure to take the GM vehicle transporters up 8m to the new VRF; the construction of a new 260m x 15m high external wall to the existing GM Press Shop.

The original scheme for the disposal of the VRF storm-water was to feed it into the existing below ground drainage system. Following a Value Engineering exercise with the Contractor, we changed the proposed VRF construction to a flat, machine-laid, permeable block paving system (a Sustainable Urban Drainage System). The VRF storm-water is still fed into the original drainage system, but now without the need for a petrol interceptor, as any petrol/oil will be ‘digested’ within the depth of the Formpave construction by microbiological action.