The development is located just outside Aidrie in Scotland. The potato food processing facility will consists of frying and frozen zones, along with packaging areas. The facility incorporates loading dock areas, pallet storage areas and office space.

The development overall scheme consists of
following approximate sizes:

• 1950m2 freezer area with mobile racking for pallets
• 18000m2 food packaging and processing areas
• 2,800m2 office space including a food demonstration area
• Plant rooms of 500m2
• 12m2 single storey gatehouse
• New vehicular access road
• Weight bridge
• 200 no. car parking spaces
• Associated site works and connections including landscaping, 3 no. attenuation areas and boundary treatment.
• The site was a previous coal mine working area and will require consolidation

The structural scheme for the development was detailed using Revit and BIM software. Lessons learnt from other food processing developments ensure that M&E services and secondary steel elements were incorporated into the main structural steel frame. This ensures a fully coordinated scheme prior to arriving on site.

The site geotechnical was quite complex. The design challenges with the site included:

• A large area of the site requires consolidation due to coal mix workings.
• Unconsolidated ground had been placed over a large area of the site which is required to be moved.
• The allowable bearing capacity of the existing soil is poor and would produce an uneconomic foundation solution. It utilised lime stabilisation to increase allowable bearing capacity and reduced the amount of material being moved off site.
• The topographic of the site is quite steep in places. To mitigate this issue, PUNCH have carried out a 3D cut and fill exercise to determine the most effective formation level which minimized excavated material being moved off site.

Due to the large site development, attenuation ponds are being utilised to reduce the rate of discharge of stormwater into the public system. It is intended than any unwanted material that could not be used during the lime stabilisation process was used to form the ponds in the area of site where the levels needed to be built up.