Concrete retaining wall system chosen for storing compost products

Poundfield Precast has recently supplied nearly 80 of its 4m high Alfabloc reinforced concrete retaining wall units to William Sinclair Horticulture for its expanding manufacturing facility at Ellesmere Port in Cheshire.

William Sinclair has operated at the former Castrol bottling plant since September 2012 and currently produces over 8 million bags of bark, compost and peat products per year. Since taking over, the company has been installing storage facilities to undertake the manufacture of the growing media from a total of 1 million cubic metres of compost material delivered to site every year. To assist in the safe storage of this material, William Sinclair is constructing large bays in order to keep incoming material segregated and has returned to Poundfield in order to facilitate this.

Projects director, Greg Sutherland, explains: “We have used Poundfield’s concrete retaining wall products at our main operations in East Anglia and have found them to be extremely durable, reliable and easy to install. The Alfabloc system is an ideal solution for us as we are able to store materials both sides of the wall without the risk of it deforming. Although the majority of our materials are lightweight, we have large wheeled loaders moving material around in very close proximity to the walling and it more than copes with the demands we put on it.”

The recently supplied Alfabloc units are being installed to contain Perlite used in the manufacture of various composts. “We have 5000 tonnes of this material delivered every 6 months,” comments Mr Sutherland, “And the new Alfablocs will form part of the Perlite storage facility as we have been very happy with other units already in use on this site. They are very easy to fit together and should we need to relocate them in the future, the speed with which this can be done is impressive.”

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