East Midlands Airport: IBRAN-X Gravel Grid Installation

The Challenge

The overflow valet car park at East Midlands Airport presented a combination of drainage and surface stability challenges that ruled out conventional hard surfacing. The site occupies low-lying ground directly adjacent to the runway and receives significant runoff from the runway surface above, making water management a critical design consideration. The area required a permeable surface capable of handling regular vehicle movements from the valet operation, using reclaimed chippings from a concurrent runway resurfacing programme as the infill material.

The Solution

TH Heath Contracts selected IBRAN-X to stabilise the surface, recognising that the grid system would contain and lock the irregular reclaimed chippings in place while providing the permeability needed to manage the considerable water ingress from the adjacent runway. The sub-base was stripped and replaced to specification, a geotextile membrane was installed to separate the formation from the aggregate layer, and 5,000 IBRAN-X units were assembled across the site over the course of a single week. Direct delivery from IBRAN's Leicester manufacturing facility to the Leicestershire site minimised lead time and logistics complexity.

The Outcome

The completed surface manages the runway runoff effectively, with the IBRAN-X void structure providing the infiltration capacity required to prevent surface water accumulation on a site that had previously been prone to waterlogging. The reclaimed runway chippings, locked within the grid cells, provide a robust and cost-effective surface that would otherwise have been difficult to stabilise. The one-week installation across 1,250 m² demonstrated the speed advantage of the IBRAN-X grid system over conventional paving alternatives.