Southampton Central Station Quarter

The development of the Southampton Station Quarter is expected to create an exciting arrival experience fit for a major city

 

The problem

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• £3M of improvement works faced delays after last minute concerns of attenuation tanks in the construction area.

• No records were available to confirm their existence.

• Their accurate location was urgently needed.

• Digging trial holes became costly, risky and time consuming.

• SUMO consulted to devise a non-invasive solution to locate all buried anomalies.

 

The solution

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• SUMO carried out an initial reconnaissance of the site.

• No surface responses were visible and so multi-geophysical survey techniques were required.

• The entire 1,000 square metre site was surveyed on a 1.0 metre transect grid. Low frequency ground penetrating radar (GPR) backed-up with an electromagnetic ground conductivity survey.

• The survey data revealed eight well-defined parallel linear anomalies crossing the site, characteristic of the responses expected from attenuation tanks.

• The crowns of the GPR images indicated eight tanks approximately 0.9 metres beneath the ground level.

• Unknown areas of reinforced concrete buried under asphalt were also detected.