My project

It’s in the middle of a busy campus and has posed numerous challenges in ensuring the safety of all those working on site as well as the students and teachers moving around the college. It was also a trip down memory lane for me as this is the college that I myself attended back in the mid 1970s!

Stradform has been on site since October 2005. The centre, with 4200m2 of floor space, will be the largest new building in the college’s recent history. It will provide specialist facilities for the its sports science and beauty curriculum and will also create additional social areas (café, gymnasium and aerobics studio), general classrooms, and staff and meetings rooms.

As with any construction project, ensuring the health and safety of everyone is of the greatest importance. But working on a lively college campus, where there is potential for a lot of people moving all over the site, means extra caution must be taken. One of our biggest considerations is managing the logistics of bringing materials to the site, and deliveries are planned where possible to coincide with college quiet times, when both people and vehicle traffic are at a minimum.

However, this became particularly challenging given the large amount of pre-cast concrete that needed to be brought on site and used as an architectural feature of the building, forming the ceiling and floors of the classrooms. With 358 pre-cast concrete coffers delivered over a seven week period it meant having up to five articulated lorries on campus at certain times during the day to meet the necessary programme schedule. To avoid lorries queuing around the campus we utilised the college’s bus bay as a holding area. This enabled two or three to wait at a time until it was clear for them to enter the construction site with the help of a banksman. The site itself is only accessible through one entrance and exit to keep traffic flow to a minimum.

Another consideration which was paramount was the timetabling of certain works, primarily the piling and the drainage connections. Both were carried out during the college’s holidays so it didn’t disturb students at work and cause obstructions limiting access around the campus.

For me, the reason this project has been such a success (we have been on schedule and the project is nearly complete) is the relationship we have with the college and the co-operation that has been shown by both parties. The college made staff and students aware of the building works being carried out from the start and there were no working restrictions placed upon us. By the same token, we’ve put in place all possible measures to ensure the construction site is contained within the confines of the security fencing surrounding the building and affects students and staff as little as possible.

We have also worked with the college to provide guided tours so students can better understand what goes on and the reality of what happens on a construction site, as well as giving some practical work experience to students on courses at its ‘construction centre’, including bricklaying and plumbing. A video diary of the different stages of the new centre being built has been made for use in lectures to help explain the processes behind the construction of a large multi-functional building – it has been hard work but it is great to be able to give something back to my old college!