Sefton Council - COLOURTOP - Holding Back The Seas

When Sefton Council started out on a project of regeneration for the coastal promenade of this North Western Borough they came up with the interesting idea of depicting the phases of the moon on coloured paving – everyone agreed the draft plans submitted by their artist would lift the area greatly, but they were faced with the difficult problem of "How Do We Do It?"

So, they had the drawings and the idea but were unsure of how best to proceed, and no wonder – after all, this was an area that would have to withstand vicious weather conditions with 110mph winds howling in from the adjacent Irish Sea, 30 ft waves pounding on the surface, not to mention millions of foot traffic (during more clement conditions!) over the forthcoming 20 years. To meet Sefton Council’s requirements it needed to look great, be easily maintained, hold its colour and be extremely tough and hard-wearing.

It quickly became apparent that high trafficking paints were not a viable option so a more radical solution was required.

The answer to their problem came in the shape of COLOURTOP, the new Hardened Concrete Paving System from PICS.

Working closely with Sefton Council and their artist we demonstrated how using our Colour Surface Hardener in both standard and special designer colours, we could meet the requirements of the project. We then helped them to amend the design layout where required to produce stunning results.

Two installation teams worked through vicious weather conditions to produce five themed areas of paving totaling 1500m². During construction the teams were pelted with hailstones the size of tennis balls, almost swept away by freak waves and had their concrete tent moved ¼ mile by winds gusting over 100mps…an average day on the North West Coast of England.