South Nottinghamshire Academy

The works involved the full refurbishment of a Sports Hall and associated indoor and outdoor changing areas. Externally this included the replacement of all external wall and roof cladding to the Hall, replacement flat roof covering to the changing areas. Internally new finishes were provided throughout, including new sports hall floor, fire and acoustic protection measures throughout and new wall, ceiling and floor finishes to all other areas. Building Services were completely replaced throughout.

Working for Kier through the SCAPE National Minor Works framework, T.A.D. were commissioned to provide a full multi-disciplinary team. Our scope of work initially included building condition, structural condition and building services condition surveys.

From these surveys T.A.D. worked closely with the team, Kier and the Client lead organisation, ESFA to develop the scope of works to provide compliance with their standard specification wherever possible. T.A.D.'s scope as Lead Consultant required careful coordination of building services into the refurbished building and detail design coordination to ensure compliance with specific acoustic requirements.

Replacement of the external cladding system required an understanding of the underlying structure and tolerances to be able to specify and detail a replacement covering whilst the existing remained insitu, alongside careful consideration of building control requirements to ensure compliance. Health & Safety was also a primary consideration in this element of the work, with the school building adjacent to the site, stripping off existing cladding, delivery of new materials and installation all needed to be carefully considered and discussed and agreed with all parties. The Local Planning Authority were consulted at the earliest opportunity to establish the grounds for permitted development and T.A.D. coordinated the design to work within these parameters, given the short timeframe for delivery of the project would not allow the statutory periods for the application and approval process.

Integration of new building services into the existing spaces required a detailed understanding of the requirement, legislation and construction sequencing to enable the works to be designed most effectively. Liaison with Building Control regarding compliance of alterations to the existing building were also necessary to achieve the most economic solution.

Budget control was of high importance on this project due to the overall programme constraints under which the ESFA were working. Detailed discussion around the scope of works and engagement with key stakeholders such as the Football Foundation were required throughout the design phase to enable the scope to be managed up and down within the overall budget. The early production of a risk register with strategies put in place to manage out those risks at the earliest opportunity allowed the team to manage the budget most effectively and as risks were mitigated reinvest the budget allocation to improve the overall scope of the project. So tiling repairs to shower areas became full replacement with new whiterock finishes as risks around utility supplies were investigated and managed.