Ground Engineering Experts Help Enhance Shopping Experience for New Next Store

It’s currently a challenging time for high-street retailers, with ever-fluctuating consumer spending and increased competition with online shopping platforms.  

When leading British brand Next set out to refurbish a former Mothercare site in Canterbury to expand its store presence, unexpected challenges arose. To ensure the refurbishment remained on track for the planned opening date, the brand needed to partner with a trusted expert who could complete the project seamlessly and efficiently.

The Next team enlisted the help of ground engineering specialists Mainmark UK with the installation of a new mezzanine floor, which would ensure durability, safety and literally lay the ground work for creating a high-quality experience for local shoppers.

The £70K project involved reinforcing 50 ground locations to support columns underneath the mezzanine floor. Mainmark had to increase the amount of weight the foundation could support to 283kN but faced considerable accessibility challenges due to the construction work that was running concurrently.

The team achieved this over the course of one week using its sustainable, high-quality patented Teretek® resin injection technology, alongside stringent validation testing.

David Hedley, head of commercial and infrastructure at Mainmark UK, said:

“We were able to circumvent almost all access issues due to our compact machinery. The expanding resin technology means the process takes up far less space before application compared to traditional solutions, allowing for greater manoeuvrability during application. This allowed other contractors to continue to easily work around us without having to make space concessions.

“This project was a result of a recommendation from consulting structural engineers Cundall, who we have worked with previously on a similar job in Crawley (West Sussex). This speaks volumes about the trust our customers place in our expertise and products.”

The process was undertaken during the store construction stages with minimal disruption to other ongoing contractors and activities on-site, due to Teretek’s® speed, adaptability, and flexibility. Unlike traditional methods like underpinning, geopolymer resin technology strengthens the ground in just a few hours, with less equipment and no major delays.

As part of the project, Mainmark also completed validation testing (checking that a product solves the real problem for the user) of the site accurately mapping the load-bearing strength across the whole breadth of the previous Mothercare store both before and after installation.

George Frost, Regional Project Manager South at Next, said: “Without Mainmark’s expertise and resin injection technology, project progress would have been severely impacted with the entire first-floor construction and fit-out being delayed until the ground was stabilised. They stepped in and delivered exactly what was needed for us and our shoppers. We look forward to working with them again in the future.

To learn more about Mainmark and its industry-leading services, visit here: www.mainmark.com/uk

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