Aggregates - marine dredged sand

Hanson Aggregate Marine is Europe's largest producer of marine-dredged sand and gravel, supplying to a network of wharves in the UK, the Netherlands, Belgium and France.

Our fleet of nine dredgers supplies more than 30 outlets around Britain and in mainland Europe from Amsterdam to Northern France. Of the eight million tonnes dredged annually, roughly half is delivered to external companies' wharves and half to HeidelbergCement Group wharves both in the UK and Continental Europe.

Hanson's purpose-built trailing suction hopper dredgers, which vary in size from 1,300 to 5,500 gross tonnes and are designed to extract sand and gravel from the seabed at depths of up to 50 metres. The fleet also includes hydraulic discharge and bottom dump facilities and the company has supplied aggregates to numerous coastal engineering and port development projects.

Cargoes are dredged from government-licensed areas 24 hours a day 365 days a year. All vessels are fitted with self-discharging systems which can deliver dry material onto wharves at rates of 600 to 2,600 tonnes per hour.

The vast majority of material we produce is dredged from UK waters and we manage the largest portfolio of licensed marine resources in the UK. In partnership with the mineral rights owner, the Crown Estate, we continue to develop these resources and strive to produce material in an environmentally sustainable way.