Royal Albert Dock, London

The Royal Albert Dock in east London was opened in the late 19^th century alongside the Victoria Dock and was one of the largest in London at the time, remaining a commercial dock until the 1980s. Since it was closed it has been primarily used for watersports and as a backdrop for the ExCeL Exhibition Centre and London City Airport.

As part of the continued redevelopment of the area to become one of the most fashionable areas in East London, WJ were engaged by the developer Multiplex to provide dewatering services for the installation of a new deep drainage network over a network approximately 155m by 460m in plan size. Conventionally drainage installation is controlled by the installation of a shallow wellpoint dewatering system, however drainage at the Royal Albert Dock construction site was significantly deeper, at up to 9.0m in depth, and therefore a deepwell dewatering system comprising 15no, 14.0m deep wells were installed, accompanied with a shallower groundwater monitoring system, and a recharge system comprising 16no recharge wells located away from the dewatering area, which was adopted due to the discharge limitations on site.

The installed dewatering managed to successfully control the groundwater levels within the underlying River Terrace Deposits, before being supplemented by additional wells along the northern boundary of the site where the new deep drainage network was connected to the existing public drainage network. For these additional wells WJ were engaged by Galldris. However the works still formed part of the larger Royal Albert Dock regeneration works.

• LOCATION: London Docklands
• CLIENT: Multiplex / Galldris