Opened in May 2013 the Whiteley Shopping Centre, Fareham, Hampshire, has over 29,700 m² of retail and leisure space, including a 5,500m² Marks & Spencer and a 1,810m² Next outlet. Other retail outlets include H&M, Boots, JD Sports, Bank, Sports Direct, Frankie & Benny's and Starbucks.
Planned around a "town" square, it incorporating many landscaped areas and numerous pieces of public art. The £64million Shopping Centre was jointly development and is now owned by British Land Company PLC and Universities Superannuation Scheme (U.S.S).
Located in southern Hampshire, the Centre is one mile from junction 9 of the M27, midway between the cities of Portsmouth and Southampton. With the extensive use of natural materials, an effective drainage scheme and the incorporation of many energy efficient and sustainable features, the Whiteley Shopping Centre has achieved a BREEAM excellent rating.
Conceived by Architects Corstorphine+Wright as an open townscape, the Whiteley Shopping Centre was build on levelled land that originally slopped down towards an existing car park and petrol filling station. With extensive paved, concreted, resin bonded aggregate and asphalted areas, surface water drainage was an important consideration in the general landscaping of the site.
Aesthetic demands meant the surface water drainage for the paved square and its radiating pedestrian walkways had to be as unobtrusive as possible yet fully meet the drainage requirement. This was achieved by installing over 700 metres of Hauraton RECYFIX® STANDARD 100 SLOTTED CHANNELS fitted with symmetrical stainless steel covers. Once installed this system provides an unobtrusive, narrow line of slots in the pavement surface.
The coloured resin bonded aggregate surface used for parking bays behind the shops is drained by a RECYFIX® PRO 100 channel run, fitted with FIBRETEC® Class C250, HEELSAFE gratings. RECYFIX® PRO 200 channels fitted with G-TEC ductile iron Class D400 gratings were installed across the pedestrian access route to the bays. RECYFIX® PLUS 100 channels with 6mm slot ductile iron Class D400 gratings were installed to drain rain water away from the sides of buildings.
Additionally, just over 50 metres of FASERFIX® KS 150 channels with 9mm slot ductile iron Class E600 gratings were installed across many of the Centre's access roads.
Approximately 300 metres of FASERFIX® KS 200 channels with 20 mm slot ductile iron Class E600 gratings were also used to drain the concrete service yards located behind the shops. All the Hauraton channels systems were installed by groundwork sub-contractor Euro City Group.
Andy Beirne, Hauraton's Project Engineer comments; "We worked closely with the main contractor McLaren Construction to ensure the drainage systems specified were going to be discreet, blended in well with the desired design effect and meet the loading Class required. It was particularly pleasing our RECYFIX® channels, made from 100% recycled Polyethylene-Polypropylene (PE-PP) and the FASERFIX® channels, made from Hauraton's ecological and sustainable Fibre Reinforced Concrete (FRC), were materials in keeping with the sustainable aims of this development".
