Over the years Discovery has worked closely with Elan Homes on a variety of interesting and challenging projects scattered all across the United Kingdom. Some of our other ground investigations for Elan Homes have covered places such as Inkberrow, Barwell, Creswell, Grange Farm in Wolverhampton, Barnstable and Shenington. This time, the team at Discovery are off down south to the north Devon coastline, to Illfracombe.

The site is located within a predominantly residential area, it being 700m southeast of Ilfracombe town centre. This as well as previous borehole logs have identified widespread Made Ground of variable thickness from ground surface across the site which is underlain by gravels thought to represent the weathered Kentisbury Formation. It is understood that the proposed development will comprise a housing development with associated gardens and public open spaces.
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
The scope of works was a combination of trial pitting, Dynamic Continuous Sampling as well as rotary coring. The installations of five gas and groundwater monitoring wells will also be carried out, Discovery will have a total of six visits over a three month period in order to monitor these wells. Chemical and Geotechnical testing were done in order to allow an assessment of risks and any mitigation measures required, together with a slope stability analysis and assessment of engineering properties of the near surface soils for foundation and road design considerations.