Topo & Railway survey | Thorpe Park, Leeds

Held as as example of excellence in public / private sector partnering, Met helped inform development and planning applications for this unique business and leisure destination.

Project Overview

Built on survey data collated over 12 years by Met Consultancy Group, the £400m Thorpe Park masterplan is one of the largest schemes underway in the Leeds City Region. The project is groundbreaking in its scope of uses and scale, proposing a business and leisure destination location unequalled elsewhere in the UK.

The Thorpe Park proposal includes 300,000 sq ft of shopping and leisure-park, with a 2000-seat multi-screen cinema, further leisure and hotel space and 140 acres of public park and sports facilities. The development also has substantial square footage set aside for office accommodation and a second phase residential development of 300 new homes.

Presented at the 2017 MIPIM property conference as an example of excellence in public/private sector partnering in the region, Thorpe Park has also revealed plans for a new railway link, and associated park-and-ride, that forms part of a £270m infrastructure investment into Leeds by the Department of Transport.

Technical Overview

Between 2007 and 2016, Met Consultancy Group surveyors have conducted over a dozen separate survey investigations, covering all areas of the site and employing a range of different survey techniques.

The project commenced with a survey of the railway to the north of the site, performed at night under a possession order. In 2012, Met returned to the site to perform a further topographical survey of the area to the north of the railway line, including a 1km length of road, with culvert and arboreal details. The information gathered from these surveys informed preliminary investigations by our client, and led to plans for the Manston Lane Link Road highway works, which is now central to the new proposed railway link and associated park-and-ride.

In 2016, we returned to the development to undertake further surveys of the area extending to the north of the site. This included gathering information on the land surrounding remains of the former Barnbow Munitions depot. During this work we were asked to survey some details that were of archaeological interest, and the depot has since been listed as a scheduled monument.

As well as providing topographic survey data, Met also surveyed drainage in detail, producing invert levels and pipe size diagrams. Rail levels were also checked, as a significant amount of time had elapsed since the previous survey work, and these levels were critical for bridge design.

Find out more about our land survey services, or contact us for a quote.