Canary Wharf, London

Now one of the main global financial centres, Canary Wharf was once one of the busiest docks in the world. Made redundant by containerised shipping the docks were derelict by the 1980s but the 100 acres have been transformed by the construction of high-rise office blocks, transport hubs, residential towers, shops and leisure facilities. The challenges of the site, the depth of the foundations, existing waterways and complicated underlying geology have required continuous dewatering, and WJ are proud to have a 100% success rate of delivering exclusive dewatering solutions to the Canary Wharf estate and their construction partners.

Our story started with the draining of cofferdams for the very earliest developments which included One Canada Square (for a time the tallest building in western Europe) in 1988, and has continued right up to the present day with the dewatering of the Wood Wharf residential development. Our work has encompassed every dewatering discipline and varied from inclined wellpoints just 2.5 m long inside a cofferdam, to wells 150 m deep to underdrain the deepest pile foundations ever installed in the UK.