Within the remote location of this project lies a number of unique factors to be taken into consideration. Close to the British Army’s Otterburn Range, the road is the primary route for artillery carrying vehicles. As an area of natural beauty, it also carries a large volume of tourist traffic along this ancient arterial road between England and Scotland.

Against this backdrop a project was fashioned to create road widening at key points on the route. In addition to the need to withstand heavy loads, the environmental impact was also a major factor with the need to fully blend the lane with the natural surroundings. To achieve this, a preference for a grassed paver was identified, albeit with a brown colouring to the concrete.

The project initially commenced with a pre-cast grass and concrete block system. Early use however indicated load bearing difficulties and the bulk of the works then shifted to using cast-on-site and fully reinforced GRASSCRETE. Type GC2sc was selected using 10mm diameter (A393) mesh reinforcement. The brown pigmentation was achieved by use of a though colour in the mix supplied by Hanson Pre-Mix Limited. At the time of writing this case study works are still in progress