Rock & Alluvium’s 40 m CFA piles at Bow Green: design notes for London ground engineers
Reviewed by Joe Ashwell
First reported on New Civil Engineer
30 Second Briefing
Rock & Alluvium, part of Van Elle, has installed its deepest continuous flight auger piles to date, reaching 40m, for the Bow Green development in East London. The record-depth CFA piles indicate challenging ground conditions and high load or settlement performance requirements typical of dense urban sites near the Thames. Contractors and designers may need to consider comparable pile lengths, rig capabilities and spoil management strategies for future high-rise or mixed-use schemes in similar London alluvial and made-ground profiles.
Technical Brief
- Concrete placement through hollow stem augers ensured full-depth shaft formation without open bore exposure to groundwater.
Our Take
Bow Green’s 40 m CFA piles come just as Strabag UK moves to acquire Van Elle, suggesting Rock & Alluvium’s deep-piling capability will likely be folded into a much larger European ground engineering platform with stronger balance-sheet support for complex London basements.
In our geotechnical coverage, Van Elle has recently been repositioning away from lower-margin overseas rail work, so high-spec urban projects in London like Bow Green are likely to be increasingly important for margin recovery and for justifying Strabag’s acquisition premium.
East London schemes with very deep CFA foundations typically face tight programme and noise constraints; demonstrating 40 m capability here will make Rock & Alluvium a more credible bidder for future high-rise or over-station developments in the capital where bored piling has traditionally dominated.
Prepared by collating external sources, AI-assisted tools, and Geomechanics.io’s proprietary mining database, then reviewed for technical accuracy & edited by our geotechnical team.
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