Chard Town Centre

EJ McGrath delivered the earthworks, drainage, kerbing, natural stone paving and masonry for main contractor Alun Griffiths (Contractors) on the regeneration of Chard town centre, a public realm scheme carried out for South Somerset District Council. Working with our own teams and plant, we remodelled the streetscape along Fore Street, Holyrood Street and Boden Street, replacing worn highway and paving with new stone surfaces, drainage and reinstated street furniture. The town centre stayed open and trading throughout.

The brief

Alun Griffiths engaged EJM to self-deliver the civils and hard landscaping at the heart of the regeneration: to take up the existing streets, install new drainage and kerb lines, and lay the natural stone paving that gives the town centre its finished character. The work covered several linked streets and had to be phased around live shopfronts, traffic and pedestrians.

What we did

• Site clearance, carriageway breakout and earthworks across Fore Street, Holyrood Street, Boden Street and Howards Row, with subsoiling, topsoiling and Type 1 build-up to hold the finished levels
• New surface-water drainage: pipe runs and connections, gullies, chambers and ACO channel outlets
• Granite, stone and HB2 kerbing, bullnose and drop kerbs, with dished, linear and stone channels, including the Blue Lias rill channels through Fore Street and Holyrood Street
• Natural stone paving laid in phases: flagstone paving, setts and Blue Lias flags, with tactile paving to crossings
• Blue Lias masonry and repointing, reusing historical flag paving to blend levels into existing surfaces
• Tree pits and planting, plus careful removal, storage and reinstatement of street furniture: benches, litter bins, cycle racks, a BT phone box, post box, notice boards and a public sculpture

Working in a live town centre

The scheme ran through a trading high street, so access, traffic management and pedestrian routes were controlled street by street and phase by phase. On Fore Street our teams uncovered an unstable culvert beneath the carriageway; we carried out investigation and CCTV surveys and installed a 20mm mild steel plate, around 12m long, to bridge it so paving could continue safely. Existing bedding depths and ground conditions varied across the site and were reworked to keep the new stone paving true to level.

The outcome

EJM handed over a fully remodelled town centre streetscape: new drainage, kerbing, natural stone paving and reinstated street furniture across Fore Street, Holyrood Street and Boden Street, all self-performed with our own teams and plant as part of Chard’s public realm regeneration.