INDUSTRY UPDATES

Each month, PSBJ rounds up the latest public sector construction updates, from new contracts to industry awards.

Construction work begins on Dundee’s new £100m community campus

Jenny Gilruth MSP, Cabinet Secretary for Education and Skills, witnessed construction work beginning on an integrated educational and community facility for the east end of Dundee. Pupils joined Ms Gilruth in making symbolic footprints in wet concrete to create a mark that will become a feature at the new £100m East End Community Campus. Designed by Holmes Miller for Dundee City Council, with Robertson Construction as the main contractor, the new facility will cater for around 1800 pupils from Braeview Academy and Craigie High School and their teachers, staff and the wider community. Offering an optimum environment for learning and attainment, the new 19,500m2 campus will include a variety of teaching and informal meeting spaces, a central learning plaza, presentation spaces and specialist Additional Support Needs (ASN) areas. The design also incorporates flexible spaces such as a ‘Hellerup’ staircase where pupils and staff can relax, socialise and collaborate. Facilities that the wider community can use will include a music and drama centre, cafe, library, floodlit all-weather pitches, a fitness suite and a dance studio. The indoor accommodation will be arranged around a central courtyard that provides an outdoor civic space for community and school events, breakout and relaxation. The community campus, which is due to open in time for the new academic year in August 2025, will be built to the international Passivhaus sustainable energy use standard, using responsibly-sourced materials.

Clarke Willmott hosts social housing event

Experts in the social housing sector gathered at a drinks event in Manchester, organised by national law firm Clarke Willmott, to share ideas and discuss the current issues facing the housing sector. Hosted by Clarke Willmott’s leading social housing team, which includes Lindsay Felstead, Kary Withers and Oliver Smedley, the event coincided with the end of the CIH Housing 2023 Conference and Exhibition in Manchester. Topics included governance, risk, tenant voice, the importance of social care and the cost-of-living crisis. 75 people attended Clarke Willmott’s event and, due to the popularity, the firm is planning to organise a similar gathering next year. Lindsay Felstead, Clarke Willmott Partner and Sector Co-Lead for Social Housing, said: “The CIH Housing event was fantastic and our follow-up event was a great way to round it off and catch up with key players in the social housing sector in a more relaxed environment. It is a really prominent event for the industry and we’re lucky to have an excellent presence in Manchester with our Spring Gardens office, as well as across the UK with our additional six regional offices. This leaves us well placed to be able to support the sector with any legal issues they might face and be a leading force with unrivalled experience.”

London’s newest technical college opens in Nine Elms

A pioneering new further education facility dedicated to science, technology, engineering arts and maths (STEAM) courses has opened in Nine Elms, London. The state-of-the-art building represents a significant milestone for the £100m London South Bank Technical College project, which is being delivered in two phases. Phase 2, set to complete in 2025, will encompass the construction of two additional college buildings dedicated to health, life sciences and business education. GRAHAM was appointed as the lead contractor by South Bank Colleges and works on site for the new college commenced in 2021. The project was procured through Pagabo’s £10bn Major Works Framework, and this completion marks a significant milestone, with London South Bank Technical College lauded as the UK’s first purpose-built comprehensive technical college in a generation. The new building provides a wide range of formal, informal and social learning spaces, workshops, breakout areas and a cafe. Along with a distinctive external facade featuring brickwork, curtain walling and pleated metal cladding, a standout internal design feature is the ‘digital spine’, a series of stacked double-height spaces spanning all 10 floors and interspersed with a series of collaborative learning spaces supported by the latest technology.

Works progress at new central Northampton student digs

Construction works are well underway for a new £2m high-spec student accommodation scheme in Northampton town centre. Delivered by nationwide refurbishment contractor, Fortis Vision, Orient House – a purpose-built 41-bed student building on Kettering Road – will provide accommodation where there is a chronic shortage for Northampton University. Works will include the refurbishment of an existing building to provide six one-bedroom apartments, alongside the construction of an 11,500ft2 new build comprising three floors of six cluster flats with a total of 35 individual en-suite bedrooms. The development will reinvigorate a previously-derelict town-centre building while addressing a need for purpose-built accommodation as identified by the university, and Orient House marks the beginning of Fortis Vision’s move into the new-build main contractor marketplace following extensive experience in delivering multiple refurbishments for large purpose-built accommodation. The scheme commenced for client, Abington Park Investments, in December 2022 and works are due to be completed in September 2023, in time for the new university year start.

A brand-new £21m mixed-use leisure scheme has opened its doors in the historic market town of Morpeth, Northumberland – marking the advent of a new model of leisure scheme for the UK, which combines sport and leisure with community facilities in a high-street setting. Morpeth Sports & Leisure Centre was designed by GT3 Architects and constructed by Willmott Dixon. It was funded by Northumberland County Council and delivered by Advance Northumberland – the development arm of the county council. After being awarded planning permission during the pandemic – one of the first schemes given the go ahead via a virtual planning committee meeting – construction started in autumn 2020, with the doors opening to the local community in April 2023. Located on Gas House Lane, at the edge of the town-centre conservation area and sitting beside the River Wansbeck, the impactful facility acts as a bookend to the high street. The centre incorporates a new community services hub, which includes a double-height community library, a customer service centre, plus a brand-new adult learning facility with classrooms for a number of courses. There is also a six-lane swimming pool with spectator gallery, flexible learner pool, spa facilities, a variety of fitness spaces, a multi-use sports hall and large studio space designed to hold community events and a cafe, with connections to a poetry garden and outdoor terraces that act as an important social space for families and tourists alike.

£1.3m

delivered in Bedfordshire school extension

Eight new classrooms have been added to a Bedfordshire school to accommodate more youngsters from a growing community in the next term. Further facilities, including a rest area and multi-use hall, have been included in the two-storey extension to Wixams Tree Primary School. Improved outdoor playground areas, new green and creative areas, as well as a reconfigured nursery, rest areas and a multi-use hall have also been established on the site by Hertfordshire-based construction company Willmott Dixon. Ross Taylor, Senior Operations Manager at Wilmott Dixon, said: “We have a long-running relationship with the school and Bedford Borough Council. We built Wixams Tree Primary School and Wixams Academy in 2012, so we were delighted to be back building more fantastic facilities in this growing community.” Throughout the months spent on site, the Willmott Dixon team supported the community, contributing £1.3m in social value, from time spent in staff hours working with young people, having local staff on the project and focusing on a supply chain within a small radius of the site. Natalie Sidey, Social Value Manager at Wilmott Dixon, said: “It’s not just about the bricks and mortar for Willmott Dixon. Being able to add value to the community is important for us. Social value is at the heart of what we do, which is one of the reasons we spend so much time going into schools to support the students.”

Housing is a critical part of the current NHS staffing crisis and surplus National Health Service land should be used to deliver homes for health and social care workers to support staff retention and recruitment, according to a recently-launched whitepaper. The whitepaper, titled ‘A People Driven Approach; Delivering NHS Homes’, authored by the NHS Homes Alliance – a collaboration of representatives from public and private sector organisations – sets out a vision for using the NHS estate to build affordable, high-quality and sustainable homes near to hospitals and clinics. The paper sets out proposals to deliver homes for long-term rental, retaining the freehold interest and using private sector and housing association development expertise to build housing to meet demand identified by trusts to improve retention and recruitment while protecting the long-term value and flexibility of use for the NHS. Lord Markham CBE, Parliamentary Under Secretary of State at the Department of Health and Social Care, says: “I welcome the paper from the NHS Homes Alliance, which highlights several recommendations to address the issues that have so far prevented the NHS delivering keyworker accommodation at the scale and pace that is required. I will lead a joint taskforce with the Housing Minister, Rachel Maclean, to work through the barriers identified and support the NHS to streamline delivery of this much-needed accommodation to support its vital and valuable workforce.”

A brand-new, category-C resettlement prison has completed in Leicester, delivering more than 600 permanent jobs in the local area, with a core focus on prisoner rehabilitation through skills-based training and employment opportunities. HMP Fosse Way forms part of a UK Government plan to deliver 3360 additional prison places by 2023 at Fosse Way and the recently-opened HMP Five Wells in Wellingborough. The project will initially house 1715 prisoners across a 16-acre site, with an additional cell block and ancillary building extension approved by Blaby District Council and Oadby and Wigston Borough Council last December, extending capacity further. Independent property, construction and infrastructure consultancy, Pick Everard, was appointed as lead designer for the project, providing architecture, interior design, civil engineering, building engineering, sustainability and energy, structural engineering, landscape architecture and interior design services. Tim Irons, Operations Director at Pick Everard, said: “The interior design has been closely considered, applying biophilic and salutogenic principles to support wellbeing and strengthen the identity of each space. It is a modern, sustainable custodial estate, working to BREEAM ‘Excellent’ standards, which, following its planned extension, will become one of the biggest prisons operating in the UK.”