Lidl, Richmond Road, Twickenham

A new three-storey building and basement will be constructed to accommodate a new Lidl food store. The development will benefit from 55 car parking bays. The site occupies an area of approximately 0.34 hectares and was formerly Ryde House, a mixed-use building comprising 2,500 square metres of office accommodation and a further 202 square metres of retail floor space on the ground floor.

We were appointed to assist in the planning application, providing the council a Section 61 application, along with a BS5228 construction noise and vibration assessment and long-term noise, vibration and dust monitoring during the demolition and main construction elements of the work. The construction noise and vibration assessment was submitted as part of a Section 61 application to Westminster Council and for the Party Wall award.

Utilising the Noisescout by NTI Audio, Avatrace and Aeroquel real-time monitoring systems we set up multiple meters on site. Our equipment was on site for over 18 months. The meters issued instant alerts to us and the main stakeholders if noise and vibration limits were close to being exceeded. We were reactive to these alerts and advised the demolition contractor (Matthews Sussex) and main contractor (Kier) to ensure all agreed limits were met or mitigated via Best Practical Means when an exceedance occurred.

Towards the end of the project, we proactively liaised with local authority environmental protection and party wall surveyors to ensure there was written agreement to remove the equipment as early as possible to avoid unnecessary costs to our client (Lidl). The project was a success, with all equipment removed earlier than the programme originally planned, due to excellent community liaison by all parties.