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Marvellous wildflower project commences

March 26, 2021/in News, Press Release/by Michelle Beck

Marvellous wildflower project commences: Work has started on a new wildflower project that will enhance roundabouts and verges at three West Berkshire locations. The ‘Tesco roundabout’ on the A339 Sandleford Link, the roundabout on the junction of the A4/B4000 Stockcross Road, and the verge at Cow Lane in East Ilsley will all benefit from specialist […]

For sustainability, meet the EPG

March 26, 2021/in Turf Spotlight/by Admin

For sustainability, meet the EPG: Senior Environmental Consultant Dr Tom Young introduces the newest member of the STRI family, The Environmental Protection Group (EPG), and takes a closer look as to how the new partnership can help manage water at sports facilities. The Environmental Protection Group (EPG), established in 1998, is a leading independent geo-environmental […]

Marvellous wildflower project commences

March 26, 2021/in News, Press Release/by Michelle Beck

For sustainability, meet the EPG

March 26, 2021/in Turf Spotlight/by Admin

Full Sized Blog Element (Big Preview Pic)

Marvellous wildflower project commences

March 26, 2021/in News, Press Release/by Michelle Beck

Marvellous wildflower project commences: Work has started on a new wildflower project that will enhance roundabouts and verges at three West Berkshire locations.

The ‘Tesco roundabout’ on the A339 Sandleford Link, the roundabout on the junction of the A4/B4000 Stockcross Road, and the verge at Cow Lane in East Ilsley will all benefit from specialist wildflower products supplied by Wildflower Turf Ltd.

Marvellous wildflower project commences

West Berkshire Council has appointed experts Wildflower Turf Ltd to create the eye-catching wildflower displays. With eco-friendly projects including the supply of wildflowers to the London 2021 Olympics, The Hive at Kew Gardens, and thousands of other small and large projects around the UK, Wildflower Turf Ltd is recognised as the UK’s leading wildflower specialist.

West Berkshire Council will be utilising both Wildflower Turf® at East Ilsley and Meadowscape Pro™ to enhance the roundabouts. The turf is ready planted as a roll containing immature wildflower plants and a healthy root network and once laid, creates an almost instant meadow. Likewise, Meadowscape Pro™ is a pre-seeded growing medium used by professionals for effective wildflower establishment and creates an environment for much more effective seed germination than conventional direct seeding methods. Both products have been carefully chosen to produce flowering plants from late-spring to mid-autumn which will create visual impact as well as helping to feed and shelter bees, butterflies, and all manner of other wildlife, with only limited maintenance required throughout the year.

Wildflower Turf® has already been laid in East Ilsley with the A339 and B4000 roundabouts also being completed this week.

Steve Ardagh-Walter, West Berkshire’s Executive Member for the Environment, said: “It’s great to see this exciting project underway. Wildflowers offer so many benefits, not least because they are beautiful to look at. They are an environmental winner too as they can provide vital refuge for many kinds of wildlife, from insects to reptiles, mammals and birds.”

He added: “The environment is a priority for everyone and, as a council, we are working hard to reach carbon neutrality by 2030. Our 2021-22 Budget includes a £12.5m commitment to our Environment Strategy which includes a council owned solar farm and projects such as this one that will go towards meeting this vital environmental target.”

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For sustainability, meet the EPG

March 26, 2021/in Turf Spotlight/by Admin

For sustainability, meet the EPG: Senior Environmental Consultant Dr Tom Young introduces the newest member of the STRI family, The Environmental Protection Group (EPG), and takes a closer look as to how the new partnership can help manage water at sports facilities.

The Environmental Protection Group (EPG), established in 1998, is a leading independent geo-environmental engineering design consultancy delivering cost-effective, sustainable designs focused in the areas of contaminated land remediation and gas protection, sustainable water management, flood risk assessment and structural waterproofing.

For sustainability, meet the EPG

STRI and EPG have been working closely with one another since 2010 when the two companies worked together on a number of London 2012 Olympics projects. It was formally announced in August 2020 that STRI and EPG had joined forces and EPG is now part of the STRI Group.

Figure 1

EPG has a huge amount of experience in water management plans, site-wide drainage schemes and sustainable water harvesting. Coupled with STRI’s agronomic, research and design capabilities, the Group now has the ability to further assist sports facilities. In particular, EPG has vast experience in designing Sustainable Drainage Systems (SuDS), which are now more commonplace and often required as part of any planning conditions. EPG was actually co-author of the CIRIA SuDS Manual, a key piece of industry guidance, which is the go-to document for any SuDS engineer.

Harvesting water from buildings

STRI and EPG can accurately model and predict volumes of water that can be collected from buildings, which can be easily collected and stored for later reuse
This solution can be ideal for small sports facilities that currently rely on mains water
Water collected can easily be incorporated into a small-scale irrigation system with the pump station preferentially using collected rainwater before mains water
In the example in
Figure 2

Figure 1, a small cricket club in London could potentially harvest nearly 270m3 a year from their clubhouse roof and 400m3 a year from the club car park. This could potentially reduce the club’s mains water requirements by 20-50%. The design of the storage tank is critical in these situations; in order to provide a cost effect solution, but to also be large enough to take advantage of large storm events

Harvesting water from whole sites

STRI and EPG can also produce much larger water models for whole sites. This allows us to predict:
a) how much water falls across an whole site and when
b) where this water ends up
c) how much of this water can be transported and stored for later reuse
This detailed approach is very much cutting edge, with STRI and EPG optimising hydraulic models based on experience from other sectors and making them appropriate for sports turf situations
Key issues to consider include detailed analysis of site drainage systems, rootzone composition, = effect of vegetation on runoff and effect of climate change on future rainfall events
In the case study shown in Figure 2, STRI and EPG were able to accurately model the entire drainage network of an 18-hole golf course

Figure 3

It was found that an average volume of 3750m3 a month was potentially available for the club once local topographical issues, losses in ground infiltration and inherent water capture by
vegetation were taken into account
With a current demand of 10,000m3 a month, water harvested from the course easily accommodates all the club’s irrigation demand, and also allows the club to seriously look into the addition of fairway irrigation
Runoff from the winter when demand is low can be stored to create a surplus of water for the summer when the irrigation demands are at their peak. Therefore, the club would require a reservoir largeenough to not only meet demand throughout the year but also to build up surpluses during the winter
The club is now looking into the concept in more detail, with STRI and EPG supporting with detailed designs, reservoir sizing and help with Environment Agency permission

Flood risk Assessments/ mitigating effects of flooding

In some situations, flooding of certain areas of buildings is problematic and STRI and EPG are required to design sites to accommodate water from elsewhere
EPG is very experienced in running detailed Flood Risk Assessments (FRA) for sites and then designing solutions if flooding is predicted
In Figure 3, a site was predicted to undergo serious flooding on a regular basis. EPG was able to mitigate against this by designing the site to accommodate water elsewhere. This was achieved by a simple depression across the site that could accommodate additional flood water (Figure 4)

Figure 4a & 4b

Green/Blue roofs

The runoff from most new buildings needs to be slowed down in order to reduce the amount and speed of runoff from the building. This can be achieved via the use of rainwater storage tanks as shown in Figure 1. However, sometimes it is more appropriate to store the water on the roofs of buildings (for example in more built up areas or when excavation for tanks is expensive). This can also be combined with vegetation of a roof. Known as Blue (storage of water), Green (vegetation) or Blue-Green (water storage with vegetation) roofs, this method can really improve the look as well as environmental credentials of most buildings
In the example given in Figure 5, STRI and EPG were tasked with reducing the runoff from the roof of a new building, whilst storing the water for later reuse in irrigating large planters placed on the roof to provide screening for the building
The innovative design stored water across the entire roof level in a shallow modular tank (85mmdeep) which was located across the entire roof slab removing the need to have a large storage tank located in the development boundary. Each roof on the building is connected so once one tank is full, it cascades into the one below

Figure 5

Underneath the planters, subsurface irrigation ‘wicks’ were installed to passively wick water from the shallow storage area into the rootzone above. This provides sufficient water for the plants to survive, whilst reducing the need for potable water across the site
The design allowed the site engineers to save significant amounts of money by removing an entire large soakaway tank (50m x 4m x 2m)

These examples only demonstrate a small amount of the joint expertise that the two companies have now combined. If you are interested in any of the problem-solving methods discussed, please get in contact with Tom Young at tom.young@strigroup.com

Reproduced from the STRI Bulletin, September 2020, with thanks.

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Half Sized Blog Element (Multi Author Style)

Marvellous wildflower project commences

For sustainability, meet the EPG

Marvellous wildflower project commences

For sustainability, meet the EPG

Full Sized Blog Element (Big Preview Pic)

Marvellous wildflower project commences

Marvellous wildflower project commences: Work has started on a new wildflower project that will enhance roundabouts and verges at three West Berkshire locations.

For sustainability, meet the EPG

For sustainability, meet the EPG: Senior Environmental Consultant Dr Tom Young introduces the newest member of the STRI family, The Environmental Protection Group (EPG), and takes a closer look as to how the new partnership can help manage water at sports facilities.

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