This first phase of this huge £100m redevelopment of Liverpool Shopping Park, formerly Edge Lane Retail Park, saw the opening of 41 new shops and created 3,000 jobs after its re-opening in 2017. The site’s owner, The Derwent Group, appointed contractors Caddick Construction to build the shopping park.

The shopping and leisure development occupies three quarters of a mile of frontage onto Edge Lane and boasts parking for 1500 cars, making it the largest retail park in Liverpool. The ‘Western Quarter’ formed the first phase of the development andthis is where Howard Civil Engineering commenced with a groundworks package for Caddick Construction in December 2016.

The site on Edge Lane has an interesting history, with the land previously being used for a variety of heavy industrial and light industry uses. As a result, the project contained a substantial volume of potentially contaminated made ground. Working collaboratively with our client, we recognised an opportunity to undertake further testing of the material to potentially reduce the hotspot areas, thus reducing volumes of made ground to be disposed of site subject to landfill tax. We also established a procedure to minimise cross-contamination during the work ensuring arisings generated were stockpiled separately according to test results received. We value engineered to reuse as much material of the made ground as possible and minimise the volume for disposal off site.