Work to reclaim an old rubbish tip on the moors above Keighley has won a prestigious award for Bradford Council and its partners involved in the project.
After being shortlisted with six other projects, Sugden End landfill reclamation has won the 2021 Institute of Civil Engineering Smeaton Award for projects costing less than £5 million in the Yorkshire and Humber Region.
Despite dreadful weather and COVID-19 restrictions, Eric Wright Civil Engineering (EWCE) completed the Council project of remediation work five months ahead of schedule.
Sugden End was used as landfill for 34 years to 1998, with household and industrial waste tipped into a valley. The restoration of the former eyesore in the Bronte moorland substantially improves the landscape and provides outdoor public space with grazing land and woods.
Work on the exposed 10-hectare site involved stripping temporary restoration soil and capping the old tip with a synthetic liner. New layers of soil from other construction projects were added and the landscape contoured to the previous ground level.
The structural stability of the restoration soils was especially important on the sloping ground. Bradford Council engineers and EWCE worked with Wardell Armstrong on a Construction Quality Assurance report for submission to the Environment Agency.
The project involved creating a half-a-kilometre long pipe as a back-up to make sure leachate cannot pollute local water sources and to provide drains to carry away clean surface water to Ellar-Carr beck.
The gas generated by the waste is harvested through wells and pipe networks powering on-site turbines generating green electricity for the Grid. The synthetic membrane substantially reduces methane escape into the atmosphere.
Materials and supplies were sourced locally with restoration soils from three different sites within a six-mile radius along with recovered soils from site. All of the workforce and subcontractors came from within Yorkshire or within 35 miles from the site, recirculating capital in the local economy.
Cllr Sarah Ferriby, Executive Member for Healthy People and Places, said: "This is a great award for the Council, for our contractor Eric Wright Civil Engineering and for designers Wardell Armstrong.
"This was a unique project because of its proximity to the cherished Bronte moorlands, a nearby residential area, a watercourse running through it and a working household waste recycling centre on the doorstep.
"We also had the added challenges of the pandemic restrictions and the awful weather at the beginning of the year. I think the judges took all that into account in presenting this award to us and we are delighted to receive it.
"The Sugden End landfill restoration site has been transformed from a blot on the landscape to an attractive green belt haven for biodiversity and wildlife which will enhance the area for generations to come."
The award was presented at a virtual ceremony.
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