More remediation to help housing shortage

According to The Concrete Centre the UK’s population will grow from 61m to 71.6m by 2033 and as a result brownfield sites previously judged to be too contaminated will have to be brought back into use.

Currently, brownfield sites make up to 70% of new homes and to avoid building on greenbelt land this will need to be increased.

The Concrete Centre also believes the use of ‘cementitious’ material for the solidification/stabilisation (S/S) of brownfield sites will increase as the UK deals with cutting landfill and uses less polluting materials.

The centre’s head of civil engineering, Alan Bromage, said: “The need to provide homes for the UK’s predicted population growth will force councils and developers to review up-to-date technology such as S/S in order to examine the potential of sites previously judged too difficult to be brought back into use.

“Using readily available binders such as cement, lime, fly ash or ground granulated blast furnace slag (ggbs), stabilisation treats the contaminants in the soil to produce a form that is less toxic and less available to the surrounding environment.

“Solidification involves the improvement of the physical properties of the stabilised medium to form an engineered soil.”

Luke Walsh