Progress on cinema Asda be going well (From This is Hampshire)

Progress on cinema Asda be going well

7:02am Monday 5th March 2007 in News By Steve Dancey

WORK on Andover's new cinema/Asda is progressing well at the Anton Mill Road site where the builders believe they should have the structure ready by Christmas.

The building unusually will be built on stilts with a car park underneath the main shop floor and a mezzanine floor - all topped off by the new cinema. How-ever the area has proved difficult terrain to work.

"The ground here hasn't been easy to work as it is chalk with a flint layer at river level and when we go below river level the running ground water comes in, so it has been quite a challenge," said John Dyer, the senior project manager with Dawnus Construction.

To meet the challenge more than 700 specially adapted piles have been driven into the ground to a depth of around 12 metres.

The next stage of construction will involve five major pours of concrete which will start soon and finish in late April.

The building's steel frame will be visible by late June or July and fully reveal its size.

One unusual feature will be a triple travelator similar to moving conveyors at airports, which will take shoppers up from ground level to the shop floors. Intelligent trolleys used by Asda will lock the wheels into the travelator on the journey up and down and a special system called cartropic will be used to prevent people removing trolleys by locking wheels if they go beyond the site perimeter.

Outside works have had to accord with the requirements of the Environment Agency which is keen to improve the quality of the River Anton. "I would say that when the work is completed there will be a better environment for wildlife than before," said Mr Dyer.

"We have diverted some of the various channels and leats that used to run across the site into one new channel which includes fish passes and the agency is very happy with that - they have even brought in other contractors to see what can be done."

Along the side of the site the plan is to lower the level of land adjacent to the river by between four and six inches to encourage a better wetland environment and plants suitable for a chalk stream.