News
11th October 2022
Celebrating 75 Years – 1990s Case Study: Holmbush Centre
The Holmbush Centre was located in a prime spot at the edge of Shoreham-by-Sea, approximately a mile from the town centre. Comprising 200,000sq.ft. of shopping and restaurant space, the development provided new Tesco and M&S stores, as well as 20 acres of parking for 1,800 cars and a large petrol filling station for Tesco, on what was a greenfield site consisting of 25 acres of sloping farmland.
The superstructure utilised an economic design of a long-span steel frame with masonry walls, and the development necessitated an extensive cut and fill exercise, predominantly in chalk. The project exhibited some good examples of sustainable construction, as excavated material was crushed on site and compacted to fill areas and lime stabilisation techniques were employed to negate the frost susceptibility of the chalk, thus avoiding the need for imported material.
Discharging surface water into the existing drainage was not an option and initial surveys revealed challenges for the design strategy, as despite being in a chalk area, the ground had very low permeability. Perega’s solution was to design a series of very large cylindrical holding tanks that allowed gradual percolation into the ground, a great example of early adoption of a sustainable urban drainage design.