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The Loft Lines

Coming through in a pinch, Loft Lines Belfast

  • J & S McKee LTD

  • Loft Lines, Belfast

  • 26,000m
    SX 4040 Geogrid

  • 13,000m
    FasTrack 60/60 Woven

  • E'GRID

When a high-profile project in Belfast required some specialist civils assistance, we were on hand to help! The Loft Lines urban development in Belfast is set to transform a prime part of the city with a whole new way of life. But when an issue arose that required geotechnical expertise, we had the answer.

The Loft Lines is built from the ground up using a £175m investment across 3.8 acres and bringing 778 sustainable lifestyle first homes to the Belfast waterfront. It’s also a first for the city in the scale and ambition of what this development will deliver to its economy, community, and standing on the world stage.

With difficult, soft ground – locally known as ‘sleech’ - to build a mat foundation upon, and a sped-up timeframe, it wasn’t all smooth sailing though.

We were brought in to design and specify the group preparation for a piling platform for two 140-tonne piling rigs – each going to a depth of 30 metres – to be set up on site. With our project partners, the contractors, and subcontractors all in place and ready to get to work, a swift solution was paramount.

Loft Lines

The Loft Lines is an exciting project for Belfast that will demonstrate the city’s ambition for years to come. We’re pleased to have been on hand to come in at an important stage and to have helped play a part in securing the next steps of its development.

Shahid Raza

Wrekin Products Ltd.

Shahid Raza, our engineering manager, said: “Having been on site and met with the client, we determined to design a 3-layer specification system consisting of 13,000 square metres of our premium FasTrack 60/60 woven geotextile and a further 26,000 square metres of our SX4040 geogrid would be required. This allowed us to alleviate the soft ground issues we were working on to create a solid platform that provided a robust foundation, with enough bearing capacity for the multiple piling rigs and other heavy engineering equipment needed.

Especially with the quick turnaround needed, we managed to hit the mark with our specification progress, satisfying our client’s needs with minimal delays or fuss.

“The Loft Lines is an exciting project for Belfast that will demonstrate the city’s ambition for years to come. We’re pleased to have been on hand to come in at an important stage and to have helped play a part in securing the next steps of its development.”

Having drawn up the designs for this project and being aware of the tight timeframe, once the specification had been approved, we pre-empted the delivery of the required products to our local supplier to ensure progress could be picked up quickly.

Wrekin coming in at the stage they did was a great help. Once we had communicated the situation and what we needed from them, they went to the drawing board and came back with an ideal solution, understanding the pressure we were under to meet our project timeline and acting accordingly.

We’re grateful for Wrekin’s help and are looking forward to utilising their team’s expertise again.

Sean McKee, civils sub-contractor on site

J & S McKee LTD

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