Two Decade Wait Pays Off for CharconTwo Decade Wait Pay Off Photo 1

Charcon hard landscaping products are taking pride of place on a high profile re-paving scheme – more than 20 years after the first stone was laid.

Sevenoaks District Council first used Charcon paving products to cover part of the town’s high street during a 1980s refurbishment scheme, which also included flagstones from another supplier.

But, after two decades of heavy pedestrian usage and occasional HGV access, while the flagstones started to show serious signs of wear, the modular Charcon paving stones were still going strong.

Senior Engineer for the council, Steve Smith, said: “When we came to review the lower end of the high street earlier this year, it was clear the pavement was in a poor state of repair but the modular paving stones from Charcon had held up much better than the larger flagstones. We were very keen to re-use as much of the existing paving stones as possible but also to keep an attractive and uniform design to the pavement, so we approached Charcon to supply the replacement stones.”

The products chosen for the job were Charcon’s EcoPave Flag Paving. Specially textured for a granite-like appearance in keeping with the existing street design and architecture, the flagstones form part of the company’s Eco Range of products, manufactured at an extremely low cost to the environment.

For added kerb appeal, the new pavement also includes Charcoal Europa Block Paving, which is simple to install, capable of handling heavy traffic movement and can be easily lifted for access to services and reinstated without leaving the usual repair scars.

Steve added: “Value for money and sustainability - in terms of product life and the wider environment - is of utmost importance when specifying products for this type of scheme and we found that the EcoPave Flag Paving. was ideally suited to our requirements. In addition to complementing the character of the high street, we know from experience they should be very hard wearing and will hopefully last us for at least another 20 years!”

Charcon has developed the Eco Range of hard landscaping Flag and Block Paving and Kerb products to support sustainable construction. It has the lowest environmental burden in the current UK marketplace, against products of a similar type.

The range uses recycled by-products from quarrying and manufacturing as raw materials for precast concrete products. The only virgin resource used in the product is cement, which has been partially substituted for waste materials.

All aggregate, sand, and other constituents have been either recycled or are a waste material. The filter medium used in the process utilises recycled paper too.

The Sevenoaks repaving project covered around 200 metres of pavement on each side of the high street. Additional work on neighbouring streets at the lower end of the town is due to take place in the future.

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