Back to Victorian times for SUMO

Instead of surveying an airport or city centre redevelopment, leading UK underground utility detection specialist, SUMO Services, has been surveying a Victorian town.

Work has been carried out to survey the site of Blists Hill Victorian Town at Shropshire’s Ironbridge Gorge World Heritage Site.

At the town visitors can step back in time and experience life in a small manufacturing and mining town at the end of the Victorian era. Attractions include a bank where money can be exchanged, a grocer, bakery and sweetshop as well as a printer and candle maker in action.

The survey work has taken place in advance of a £10 million redevelopment of the site, with a grant package from Advantage West Midlands and the European Regional Development Fund, which includes the construction of a new entrance and visitor centre to the museum with a café and shop with good disabled access.

“We surveyed the site as there were no records of any of the underground services. There were some differences from a normal survey – especially the Victorian gas lights along the streets,” said Ash Patel, from SUMO Tipton.

Plans for redevelopment also include four or five new shops at the top of the town as well as a cluster of manufacturing workshops for visitors to explore.

“We located a large number of underground services in the areas that we surveyed, including some high voltage cables that will now be re-routed to make way for the new entrance and visitor centre,” added Ash. 

The site will remain open to visitors throughout the development work, which will take place in stages and is due to be completed by the end of 2008.

SUMO has won two national awards in 2006 and has worked on many prestigious construction sites across the UK including large town centre regeneration projects, new hospitals and major road building schemes.