The Challenge

Didcot is a town in Oxfordshire with big ambitions to become a ‘garden town’. A garden town is described as having a ‘holistic approach’ to developments and improvements. This includes working hard to minimise disruption and improve the environment. It also involves dealing with issues such as minimising carbon emissions, providing high quality homes and sustainable jobs.

Most garden towns are new builds and have been planned with their holistic aims in mind. The job of turning an existing town, complete with all its roads and infrastructure, into such an area is not without major challenges.
Recently, the final layout for the major roadworks in and around Didcot has been revealed. Costing £234 million, the plans include two bridges and a new bypass.

In detail these plans include:

• Widening the A4130 from A34 Milton Interchange towards Didcot from single to dual carriageway
• a new Science Bridge over the A4130, Great Western Railway Line and Milton Road into the former Didcot A Power Station site
• a new Didcot to Culham bridge between the A4130 and A415
• a Clifton Hampden bypass

The Solution

With work needing to be completed by 2024 at the latest, it was important to move fast with the site investigations required before such extensive groundworks and building. Due to the ‘garden town’ aim, consideration to the environment and wider goals of this project was a big part of the requirements.

After providing detailed proposals and advice, Rotadrill were able to ensure all the vital sampling work was carried out efficiently and without unnecessary disruption to residents, the environment and local traffic.

We carried out site investigations using dynamic sampling, SPTs and Geobore S coring drill techniques. Further requirements involved drilling multiple boreholes across the entire site before work commenced. We used both water flush and compressed air flushing techniques to provide the best outcomes in each case.