Jones Bros to minimise disruption and environmental impact as part of Grange Wind Farm contract win11th Feb 2015

Jones Bros has won a £6m contract to complete infrastructure work for the six turbine Grange Wind Farm development in Lincolnshire.

The contract for the 12.3MW Blue Energy project, located near Scunthorpe, includes balance of plant services, road works and offsite cabling.

As part of the work, Jones Bros are putting in place a series of measures to minimise the disruption caused to local residents and reduce the environmental impact of the project’s construction phase.

The wind farm, which is scheduled for completion in early 2016, features six 2.05MW Senvion turbines. Once operational, the site will produce enough electricity to power approximately 9,000 homes per year.

Patrick Bailey, Jones Bros’ regional manager for the east of England, said: “The first phase involves access improvement works as part of a Section 278 Agreement with the local authority.

“As part of our work to improve the public highway, we’ll also be simultaneously installing over 1km of cable ducts, avoiding a second stage of disruption to traffic later in the works programme.

“Once that’s completed and we’ve concluded our archaeological investigation work, we’ll look to start work on improving existing site tracks as well as building new ones.

“We’ll be using lime stabilisation to develop the site tracks, which is fairly unique on a project like this. Using lime and cement to create a capping layer for the site tracks to be developed upon is an environmentally-friendly way of developing new and existing tracks.

“Usually after removing topsoils, we would lay a geotextile and place aggregate on top of it, but by using lime stabilisation, we aim to reduce the thickness of placed aggregate significantly, roughly halving the amount needed. That also has a knock-on effect to the number of heavy goods vehicles needed to transport materials to site.

“Wherever possible we strive to reduce any impact to the local communities and to develop sustaintable construction techniques.

“It’s great to be working with Blue Energy again, and we’re looking to pick up where we left off with the successful completion of Middlewick wind farm.”

The project continues Jones Bros’ expertise in delivering infrastructure services for renewable energy developments.

Founded in the 1950s, Jones Bros employs approximately 300 people. It operates across the UK in sectors including construction of waste management facilities, highways and renewable energy projects such as wind farms.