ABOUT US
History
OUR HISTORY
Central Alliance is a ground engineering technical services company, specialising in investigations, surveys and specialist geotechnical services, employing over 100 people working across all sectors including transport, energy, utilities, government, defence, property, construction and infrastructure. We are proud of our history and how our business has developed into a forward-thinking world class technical services provider.
The business is established in the UK under the previous name of Drift Ground Investigation as a one person business with one small drilling rig, undertaking ground investigations. The business initially worked for consultants and other ground investigation contractors across all sectors.
The first rail projects were won in London North East region (now Eastern), leading to a 7-year programme of work investigating voided structures (viaducts) through the track bed during night time possessions.
The first employee starts working for the business alongside the founder.
The business diversifies acquiring the first cable percussion drilling rig to work alongside the dynamic sampling rigs. A second dynamic sampling rig was acquired in the same year.
Central Alliance wins its first contract worth over £100,000: to sample coal stocks at nine power station sites using a hollow stem auger system.
The first overseas contract won and delivered in Norway – ground investigations for new distribution centres. The business’s first dynamic sampling rig was taken by van, via ferry to Denmark, then driven through Denmark and via a second ferry to Oslo.
The business acquires its first rotary rig, a new Massenza Mi5. The rig was sourced and acquired in less than a week to deliver an urgent contract when a hired rig became unavailable.
Central Alliance diversifies by establishing a survey and geomatics team to complement the ground investigation department and provide a fuller pre-construction service offering. The business embarked on a period of rapid growth.
Central Alliance relocates the head office to a larger office in Wakefield to accommodate the expanding business.
Central Alliance invests in unique slope climbing drilling rigs and the first mobile mapping system of its kind in the UK, pushing the business to the forefront of restricted access investigations and surveys.
Central Alliance reacts to a large landslide at Harbury Cutting to rapidly acquire data for a failing cutting slope, delivering ground investigation, instrumentation and monitoring, aerial surveys, and dewatering. The business went on to become a restricted access and slope investigation specialist, later working on Eden Brows, Farnley Haugh, Loch Eilt and Stonehaven landslides and Lime Street Station's retaining wall collapse.
Central Alliance establish the Applied Technologies department with the purpose of undertaking research and development and introducing new survey and investigation techniques in to the business.
Leading environmental and engineering services company RSK Group Ltd announces that it has acquired Central Alliance.
After reading a BBC article on the discovery of a previously unknown chamber in the Great Pyramid, Egypt, the Central Alliance Applied Technologies team researched and then introduced the same technique for infrastructure applications by collaborating with a university consortium, successfully completing a proof of concept trial at Alfreton Old Tunnel, searching for hidden former construction shafts in the disused railway tunnel.
Central Alliance wins the coveted Ground Investigation Specialist of the Year award at the tenth anniversary Ground Engineering Awards.
Central Alliance jointly wins the Team of the Year award with ASTERRA and National Highways at the New Civil Engineer Techfest Awards, for an innovative remote sensing project.
Central Alliance team bids and wins the first framework direct for Network Rail on behalf of RSK Environment – the Wales and Western Survey Services Framework.
Central Alliance invest in a bespoke helicopter pod to expand aerial survey services. The first project for the pod was a coastline LiDAR survey between Whitby and Skinningrove.
Following a long standing relationship between the businesses, Central Alliance acquires specialist geotechnical consultancy Electrokinetic Limited, bringing innovative slope stabilisation and electrokinetic de-watering in to the business.
Central Alliance invests in specialist drilling rigs taking an exciting delivery of two new specialist ground investigation rigs and a support unit. The new specialist plant includes a tracked 200kN Cone Penetration Testing (CPT) rig and a multi-purpose slope climbing rig, together with a slope climbing support unit.
Central Alliance is awarded the Western monitoring contract for Network Rail, managing all new and existing geotechnical instrumentation in the Western region.is
Central Alliance and Geoptic Infrastructure Investigations complete a series of muon tomography investigations of nine railway tunnels in the Wales and Western region. The technique offers significant health and safety, sustainability and data quality benefits over more traditional investigation techniques such as intrusive drilling.
Central Alliance completes a slope stability appraisal for a highway In New South Wales, Australia combining data sets including satellite remote sensing data and undertaking GIS analysis. This was delivered entirely remotely from our head office in Wakefield.
Central Alliance delivers a long awaited slope stabilisation trial for Network Rail stabilising a railway embankment using Electrokinetic geosynthetics. The anodes and cathodes were installed using Central Alliances’s slope climbing rigs, leaving mature trees in place.
Central Alliance expand in to the mining sector undertaking a second project in Australia. This proof of concept trial involves the de-watering and stabilisation of tailings storage facilities using Electrokinetic geosynthetics.
Central Alliance establishes a new instrumentation brand, Sight Automation, to provide geotechnical, environmental and structural remote monitoring, offering more sustainable monitoring solutions to its clients.