Sainsburys was founded in 1869 by John James Sainsbury and his wife Mary Ann Sainsbury in London and has grown to become one of the UK's largest retailers.
This new development took place at the company's supermarket at Weedon Road in Northampton. It consists of extensions to the existing store on 2 sides together with the construction of a multi storey car park on the site of the existing surface car park for shoppers.
The foundation piles for the store extensions consisted of 270 no 350mm and 600mm diameter continuous flight auger piles installed to various depths of up to 12 metres.
A number of piles had to be drilled inside the existing store and within the actual retail areas. For this a Technodrill TD308 mini piling rig was used to drill and grout the piles during a series of night shifts. Each morning all trace of the piling equipment had to have been removed and the sales areas reinstated for business to resume as usual.
The situation was made even more demanding in that the main entrance for the store was through the actual piling area. Safe access was maintained using a covered walkway but once again the piles within it had to be drilled by a mini rig working at night.
The foundation piles for the new multi storey car park consisted of 95 no 350mm diameter continuous flight auger piles all of which had to be drilled during a series of night shifts. Once again the area had to be fully reinstated for the following morning so that uninterrupted customer car parking could continue for as long as possible.
Ground conditions consisted of Made Ground overlying Mudstone of the Inferior Oolite Group which was present at a depth of 8.0 metres below ground level.