LOCATION:
The construction of a £6m tri-service community station offers a shared location for Royal Berkshire Fire and Rescue Service, Thames Valley Police and South Central Ambulance Service.
Our self-delivery model, where we have direct control of deployment (workforce and construction plant) supports our ability to deliver a range of civil engineering and building disciplines as a single service.
Located to the immediate south of the A4 Bath Road, the new station features community facilities, offices, support accommodation, training facilities including training tower and satellite vehicle repair facility. The works comprised:
- Site clearance and ground remediation.
- Japanese Knotweed removal.
- New entrance and emergency exit onto the A4.
- Piling and piling mat.
- Ground beams for a suspended slab.
- Steel frame with single skin of masonry with a mixture of standing seam feature roof and wall cladding and rainscreen cladding.
- Metal decking and concrete topping to upper floors.
- Feature metal staircase around the passenger lift and fireman poles from second floor down to the ground floor.
- Roof mounted PV panels.
- A mixture of concrete hard stand, asphalt and block paving to the externals.
- Training tower foundations and structure.
- M&E installation including fire alarm system, CCTV system, access control system, lightning and surge protection system and sprinkler system.
- A new foul water sewer, delivered under a separate contract.
Challenges
Remediation methodology.
Cut and fill 3D modelling exercise for site won materials.
Management and testing of materials.
Protection of all trees in accordance with the British Standard (BS 5837: 2012).
Solutions
Under our management, RBFRS’s appointed specialist, VertaseFLI, provided:
- All Environment Agency licences and consents.
- A full time environmental scientist to monitor the boundary and health and safety (in addition to a part time asbestos consultant – BOSH P403 qualified).
- The removal of grass vegetated topsoil and underlying tree roots, surface shrubs, general waste and surface asbestos containing materials.
- Supervision of all excavation works with a watching brief for unexpected contamination/visible asbestos.
- Controlled excavation of fill materials (made ground gravelly sands) by geology and contaminant impact.
- Removal of obstructions as encountered to formation cut level and notificaiton of remaining obstructions.
- Stockpiling of materials for reuse or offsite disposal including appropriate waste classification testing.
- Screening of made ground materials, where necessary.
- Crushing of recovered hardcore materials.
- Hand picking of cement bound asbestos containing materials.
- Disposal of cut materials to an appropriate licenced soil treatment facility/landfill.
- A full remediation report on completion.
Our upfront feasibility earthworks modelling, using the latest 3D design software, secured the reuse of site won material to form the capping layer and ground floor slab, optimising the gas membrane design.
All materials awaiting verification, classification or off-site removal were subject to a comprehensive material tracking system, where materials were audited against the verification requirements and disposal facility acceptance criteria.
Protective fencing was implemented and remained in place for the duration of the development. Ground level change, excavations, machinery impact and contamination of soil were subject to ongoing risk assessment.
Outcome
Our contract was completed on schedule in the autumn of 2021. Allowing for internal fit out the new facility officially came into use the following year.
