Contractors working on St Austell's £75 million town centre regeneration scheme have introduced a number of innovative ways to reduce carbon output during construction, which have been welcomed by the South West RDA.

Sir Robert McAlpine is leading the development, which is receiving £31.5m worth of investment from the RDA with the remainder from David McLean Developments. He has now implemented a Green transport Plan to encourage workers to use more sustainable means of getting to and from the five-acre site.

The company has purchased a minibus which collects employees from a car park on the outskirts of the town at the beginning of the day and drops them back at the end of their shift.

Since the start of construction in St Austell last year, Sir Robert McAlpine has also recorded the number of visitors to the site office, wht form of transport they used to get there, where they came from and how many miles they travelled. The company is now offsetting carbon emissions through the organisation ClimateCare from these and future journeys - totalling nearly 55,000 miles to date.


Managing and recycling waste on-site is also helping to reduce the number of lorry movements to and from the town centre.

The scheme aims to be a flagship for sustainable development in the region with commitments to using local subcontractors, suppliers and materials when practical and to promote sustainable construction on-site. They have also introduced an environmental purchasing policy.

Secondary aggregates, timber from accredited sustainable sources, stone from Cornish quarries, bricks from South Devon and uPVC-free cabling will be used alongside blast furnace slag in concrete. St Austell is also being proposed as a case study on steel sourcing, as part of the national move towards responsible steel sourcing.

The project, which is aiming for a 'very good' BREEAM rating, has been designed to maximise energy efficiency with a very high level of insulation, solar thermal heating and ground source heat pumps.

Rainwater will be used to flush the public toilets and possibly extended to the retail units as well.

Meanwhile, construction above ground level is now higly visible. Foundations have been dug and substructure work including the underground car park and retaining walls is nearing completion. The main concrete frame for the whole development is progressing, whilst the steel structural frame work will start this autumn.

(JM)