To assist in the planning for the future development of the former Barton Village Road Landfill site and the area known as Barton Lands, Oxford City Council appointed RSA Geotechnics to carry out a comprehensive ground investigation designed to obtain the soil and water quality.
The intrusive phase of the site investigation was carried out during the summer of 2010 and the findings will be used to refine any future design plans for the land.
The geotechnical and geo-environmental investigation was funded by Oxford City Council with support from the Homes and Communities Agency. The scope of work for the investigation was designed by the consulting engineers for the project, Peter Brett Associates.
RSA Geotechnics were contracted to form a series of exploratory boreholes and to install monitoring wells around the sports pitches built in the area of the former landfill site and the allotments and neighbouring grazing land known as Barton Lands. In addition to the boreholes a number of trial pits were excavated around the sports pitches to get a more detailed look at the soil in this area. The purpose of the investigation was to analyse the current soil and ground conditions.
A total of eleven light-cable percussion boreholes, twenty one percussive window sample boreholes, three dynamic sampling boreholes and eight hand excavated trial pits were formed. Using four drilling crews the borehole and excavation works were completed within only five days.
One of the requirements of the contract was to ensure that there was no interruption to the public use of the facilities and none of the sporting or allotment facilities were affected by the work. Precautions were taken to minimise any damage to the grassed areas.
The consulting engineers, Peter Brett Associates were contracted to monitor and sample groundwater from the monitoring wells and recover surface water samples from the nearby Bayswater Brook to monitor the water quality.