COBHAM SERVICES HGV PARKING AREA EXPANSION

Cobham Motorway Service Area (MSA) is located at J10 of  the M25 motorway. It is a single site used by traffic in both   directions, which opened for business in 2012. 

The service area contains a customer service building with   restaurants and refreshment areas, retail facilities, a game   zone, toilets, showers, pay phones and cash machines. 

The building is located in a central position to the southern   end of the MSA away from the motorway. It was necessary   to expand the heavy goods vehicle (HGV) parking as the site   had been extremely popular and was running beyond   capacity. Meaning the lorries are parking on slip roads and   access roads into the site, causing jams and safety   concerns.  

The proposal was to increase the HVG parking numbers by  79 new spaces, to the west of the petrol filling station. The   proposal sits into the ground meaning there would be the   need for retaining walls around the circumference of the   site. To aid functionality and reduce its visual impact, gabion   retaining walls were used. Tree planting and earth modelling   will also help set the scheme into the landscape. 

A mixture of mass gravity gabion walls for smaller heights   and Maccaferri's Gabion Terramesh® system reinforced with   ParaGrid 50/05 for larger heights was utilised for value   engineering purposes. 

The site consisted of a 300m wall up to 5.5m high and a   100m wall 2m high. 

Maccaferri Construction was appointed to design, supply and   install the gabion retaining walls under Breheny who were   the main contractors. Elliot Wood the design engineer for   Extra MSA Group was the main client.