Marylebone Cricket Club (MCC) has embarked on its Ground Development Masterplan that will see the construction of a new Warner Stand at the ‘home of cricket’, Lord’s Cricket Ground.

The new stand will have a 2,656 seat capacity along with a new facility for match control and match officials, along with catering facilities, three bars and a restaurant.

The stand will also feature ground source heat pumps to heat water and photovoltaic roof panels to generate electricity, as well as rainwater collection and recycling and ‘green’ or living walls.

The design will also incorporate a large basement that will accommodate storage and waste facilities, a staff mess room, a cellar and plant rooms.

The large fan shaped basement will measure up to 33 metres in length and 22 metres in width which has been excavated within steel sheet piles, supported by waling beams and proprietary props supplied by Groundforce.

The firm’s Mega Brace waling beams were fitted around the edge of the sheet piled wall, some of which were up to 17 metres in length. They were then propped using 600mm diameter MP125 tubular struts measuring up to 21 metres in length.

One of the reasons that Groundforce Shorco was selected to supply the propping was that is provided a solution that minimised the number of props spanning the excavation.

Included in the complex geometry of the excavation are several obtuse angles, which involved connecting the waling beams using only one pin connection, rather than the two pins that can be incorporated into a straight join.

Because of the shape, the welding was required to eliminate horizontal and shear movement in the beam.

Further constraints include the fact that truck size on the site is limited to 16 tonne rigid lorries.

The stand Shell and core works were finished in July this year.