Less than 24
hours after an emergency order to supply materials to the Toddbrook Reservoir
was placed, more than 8,600 bags of Saint-Gobain Weber technical mortar products were
on site to help secure the dam.  

The small town of Whaley Bridge in
Derbyshire made headlines at the beginning of August when part
of the Toddbrook Reservoir dam structure was
damaged. The emergency services were clear in their warnings: there
was a major risk that an estimated 1.3 million tonnes of
water could suddenly overwhelm the town, putting
lives at risk and destroying property
and livelihoods. Some 1,500 people were evacuated from their
homes.  

On Friday 2 August, EPMS
Supplies, a national distributor of construction products, contacted
Saint-Gobain Weber to place an order for materials that would
help temporarily repair
the Toddbrook Reservoir.   

“We received a
call late afternoon to ask if we could supply in excess
of 200 tonnes of Weber Precision Grout or Repair
Concrete to the site the following day,â€� said Mohammed Aljan,
head of infrastructure at Saint-Gobain Weber.  

“From a logistical point of
view, it was obviously a challenge. As we manufacture in the UK on a large
scale, we were ready to deliver to site very quickly. There were 200
tonnes of Weber Precision Grout delivered from our manufacturing plant in
Flitwick and an additional 50 tonnes already at EPMS Supplies
depots.â€�  

Nine lorries were
required to transport all the materials from Flitwick in
Bedfordshire to Whaley Bridge. By the end of Friday 8,640 bags of Weber Precision Grout were
prepped ready to leave site. 

Stewart Nicholas, operations
director at Saint-Gobain Weber, co-ordinated the internal process of getting
the product out to the dam on Saturday morning. 

“Obviously because of the time
sensitive nature of the incident, we needed to pull out all the stops
to get the materials to site as soon as
possible. In total we had 11 members of staff helping, including two
members of staff who came from our Telford plant to
help load the lorries at 6:30 on Saturday morning. Thanks
to Simmonds Transport, all of the materials reached the
dam just a few hours later.â€�   

Once on site, the products were
applied to the dam over a period in excess of 24 hours. Weber’s Precision
Grouts and Repair Concrete has been used for over 30 years in
civil infrastructure projects and are known for their strength,
durability, ease of installation and non-shrink properties.  

www.uk.weber