GftK‘s innovative durable repointing of unbound ‘flexible’ paving

Birchwood Business Park is one of the largest business parks in the Northwest, owned by Warrington Borough Council. It has an interconnected network of unbound ‘flexible’ stone paved pathways and pedestrian areas, linking attractive communal seating areas with planting zones and multiple water features.

Unfortunately, the paving needed increasingly frequent cleaning, toxic weedkiller applications, resanding and refurbishment works, which was becoming a significant cost for the owners. The tenants were also not happy with the disruptive, noisy and dirty works every spring and summer, when the areas were most popular, but closures had to be imposed.

Therefore, back in 2017 they decided to see if they could find an alternative, less disruptive, non-toxic solution to prevent plant growth and eliminate the need for such disruptive and expensive works.

Several solutions were proposed and trialled through 2017/18, and the most effective, durable, and cost-efficient by far, was NCC Streetscape’s innovative solution, repointing joints permanently, with GftK vdw 850plus. This unique, ‘state-of the-art’ paving jointing, is based on 2nd-generation, 2-part, epoxy resin technology. It is supplied completely prebatched, easily mixed and wet-slurry applied across the paved surface, where it very effectively self-compacts into the joints, with no additional tooling or finishing required, and the area can be reopened after 24 hours.

As a result, the owners and their tenants are really benefitting from their 2018 decision; the maintenance team have now completed all 8,000 m2, working in annual phases, all timed to minimise disruption, and due to GftK vdw 850plus being the only truly ‘wet-weather working’ paving jointing material, this also allows work to continue and be completed in wet weather conditions, even in the rain, further minimising any disruption to the tenants.

The vdw 850plus repointed paving now just requires normal surface cleaning, as and when required. Incidentally, the GftK vdw 850plus jointing, also makes cleaning much faster and easier, as it is fully resistant to pressure jet-washing.

The Project Leader recently commented: “The first phase of the GftK jointing that we installed as a trial back in 207/18, actually still looks good as new.”