A thick piling mat to support heavy piling machinery is being laid at Bramley-Moore Dock, the site of Everton FC's new stadium, in preparation for piling in the infilled dock next week.

A 300mm deep covering of recycled stone is being rolled out on top of the compacted sand infill itself by Everton FC's main contractor Laing O'Rourke. This will allow the foundation piling to commence within the dock next week.

Infilling of the Grade II listed, 10m deep Bramley-Moore Dock in Liverpool with 480,000m3 of fluidised sand started in October. By December significant infill of the dock and the construction of the first foundations had been achieved.

The current process involves laying 12,000m3 of stone across a 40,000m2 area and is expected to take around a month. Once the piling mat is laid and existing drilling for the south stand is completed, the heavy machinery can then be moved onto the infilled dock.

Laing O’Rourke engineering lead Gerald Knight said: “The requirements for the piling mat are two-fold; firstly to protect the sand, which is still quite light and easily becomes airborne in high winds, despite the compaction process.

“Secondly, the piling equipment and all the support machinery creates high pressures on the ground - and the last thing we need is the piling rig to tilt over, or sink into the sand.

“The mat ensures we have a stable surface to distribute those forces.”

The 2,500 foundation piles needed for the site - which are then capped to provide firm foundations for the stadium’s superstructure - have so far only been installed on the solid ground on the north and south sides of the dock wharves.

From these pile caps, the first precast elements of the concrete core of the stadium have already begun to emerge on the northern side of the dock.

Knights added: “As we complete an area of the piling mat there is a progressive hand-over, so as we complete the final phase of the north stand piling, we can then move into the dock itself from next week and start piling there.

“By that stage, all the piling in the south wharf will also have been completed.

“The mat itself will then stay in place for the duration of the piling process and, when that is complete, we will have to excavate some of the mat to build the pile caps, very similar to the ones we’ve already built in the north and south wharves.”

Everton’s new stadium at Bramley-Moore Dock is recognised as the largest single-site private sector development in the country and is expected to contribute an estimated £1.3bn to the UK economy.

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