Londonderry Park Sports Pavilion, Newtownards

Londonderry Park is situated on the outskirts of Newtownards and is bounded by the Portaferry Road to the west and the Old Shore Road to the east. The site is in close proximity to the northern shore of Strangford Lough. The old Newtownards canal runs parallel to the Old Shore Road.

The Site Investigation determined that there was significant made ground in the site underlain by very soft grey estuarine deposits known colloquially as ‘sleech’, known to have characteristically low shear strength. Piling was therefore the recommended solution for the foundations.

The development consists of a new sports pavilion building, 3 pitches, a cricket pavilion and toilet block, including associated roads, car parking and drainage.

The main pavilion building comprises a structural steel frame with two 1-storey monopitch sections separated by a 2-storey section. A single-storey flat roof circulation corridor runs the full length of the building on one side.

The synthetic pitches had very stringent requirements for level tolerances given the poor underlying ground conditions and as such are supported on a Basal Reinforced Platform (BRP) comprising geotextile and geogrid layers.

Click to expand the photos below