Holyhead School

Hawker Construction were responsible for the delivery of all of the enabling works, hard and soft landscaping, car park formation and fencing associated with the delivery of a modular three storey classroom block complete with toilet blocks and a modular single storey classroom block complete with toilets.

The works consisted of the removal and demolition of the existing structures before carrying out an exercise to reduce the ground levels ready to receive the new structures. New foundations for the modular buildings were designed and formed, based on the point loads provided by the modular supplier.

The building required completely new electrical feeds connected back to the main school distribution board. New foul and waste drainage systems were installed connecting back to the schools existing systems. New water supplies were installed to both new blocks. An area of waste ground was reclaimed and formed into a car park.

On completion hard and soft landscaping was carried out forming pathways and new grassed areas around the classrooms. Finally security fencing and gates were installed around the relevant areas of the new structure.

The challenges to this project were that the buildings were being installed on made up ground. There was extremely limited access to the site due to parked vehicles. There was no existing details of the current services or drainage runs we needed to connect to.

The school would be live for large proportions of our works and we had a very short window to prepare the site before the modules were being delivered.  In addition to this the project was already very close to budget.

To deliver the project successfully we knew we had to get the majority of the muck shift operation completed when the school was off for summer holidays. This reduced the risk and with some traffic management in place we were able to ensure we could get access to the site for tippers and heavy machinery.

The foundations were then installed to a depth that meant we were building off virgin ground.  We worked with the schools facilities managers to build up an understanding of the existing services and drainage runs, carrying out tests to establish the connections that were required.

When the children were back in attendance we worked to a programme where we would secure an area and contain ourselves in that area until the task was complete and then secure the next area before working on that.

We would also install temporary access ramps and covers to areas that could cause a risk to 3^rd parties.