The new Northam Burrows Visitor Centre replaces a much older building built in 1984. Craddys inspected the original building structure and carried out structural engineering design for all alterations required to create a new open plan exhibition space and Changing Places facility within the original building shell. Structural capacity assessments were also carried out to check that the original structure could safely carry the new external cladding and insulation and we designed the piled foundations for the new modular café building.

Craddys carried out all civil engineering design for the new access road. This involved the raising of existing road levels by up to 1m to mitigate the effects of predicted future flooding. The engineering design could not utilise plastic components due to the road’s location within a SSSI. This required sourcing and specification of a suitable biodegradable geotextile. In addition to this all imported engineered fill had to meet strict chemical limits. The road design was sympathetic to the existing surface water drainage system serving the adjacent golf course, incorporating existing culverts and land drainage into the finished construction.