London's construction drives concrete mixing plant investment

Hanson UK has invested £1.3million (€1.56million) in its Acton, London, concrete plant to help meet the increasing demand in the London construction market.

This is being driven by large high-profile contracts such as Crossrail, said to be Europe’s largest construction project. Eventually eight 140m-long Herrenknecht tunnel boring machines (TBMs) will be used to construct the 21km of twin-bore tunnel section of the 118km rail line running under central London from west to east.
Paul Lacey, 1343 Hanson’s UK’s national marketing manager, says the company has a number of stationary and mobile concrete plants in the area set up to help service the station element of the project and to produce some of the tunnel elements that will be required.
Hanson says its refurbished Acton plant uses the latest technology to provide consistent product and flexibility in production and mix design from structural lightweight concrete to recycled, impermeable or high early-strength concrete.
Acton’s new low-energy equipment includes a fully computerised modern wet batch plant, 3m3 planetary mixer and 100tonne storage silos. The addition of see-through cladding reduces noise and dust, while passive infrared (PIR) detectors further reduce power demand. The addition of Regen (ground granulated blast furnace slag), pulverised fuel ash and limestone filler also reduce embodied CO2 levels in the final concrete mix.
“The refurbishment puts our Acton plant on the map as a key concrete producer in and around London,” says Luke Smith, area general manager for Hanson Concrete.
“As well as being well located for supplying large-scale construction projects in central London, we also offer a collection service from the site for smaller quantities.”