Full steam ahead at Slough Cemetery Extension

Building for the future

The project, which has been in the pipeline for a number of years, officially broke ground earlier this year and will see a major expansion to Cemetery, first opened in 1932.

White Horse Contractors were selected following a competitive tender to build this phase of the expansion, based on our substantial in-house expertise and heritage in cemetery construction, land drainage and civil engineering.

The scheme was designed by The CDS Group, with whom we worked closely utilising our in-house expertise and site-specific knowledge to find the best solution for delivering the project despite difficult ground conditions.

Having worked on a previous expansion for the Cemetery in 2014, we were able to approach the project with an in-depth understanding of the client’s objectives and unique challenges presented by the site’s high ground water table.

Bespoke solutions for unique problems

The extension is being constructed on neighbouring land to the existing cemetery, which, without specialist design and construction, would be unusable for burial plots due to the high ground water table.

To overcome the issue and deliver on the client’s vision, White Horse Contractors’ team of specialists are lifting the entire site up by an average of 1.5 metres to make it suitable for burial plot construction, without affecting the water table. To do this, we’re importing 33,000 m3 of soil under CL:AIRE protocol and constructing over 1,000m of retaining walls to lift the plots above the ground, implementing specialist drainage and stormwater attenuation.

As well as undertaking the large-scale burial plot construction scheme, we’re delivering a full civil engineering package including roadway, car park, maintenance yard and pathway construction, working alongside the in-house surfacing team of our group partners, S&C Slatter.

Fantastic progress is being made on site, which is credit to our specialist site teams and dedicated project manager, carefully co-ordinating the multi-aspect works. With the site teams in close contact with the client, CDS and our own in-house technical department, everyone is kept informed throughout the project to ensure close collaboration, with works well on track to be complete by Spring 2021.

We look forward to revisiting the site after this date to report on the successful completion of works, overcoming unusable land to deliver a comprehensive cemetery expansion project.