RBC Office Rationalisation – 19 Bennet Road

  • Client

    Reading Borough Council

  • Contractor

  • Value

    £3.66m

  • Completion Date

    March 2020

Full Cat B fitout over two floors and mezzanine area for repeat client.  The newly modernised office space now houses the Council’s Parks, Highways and Housing Departments.  The works also included the creation of a storage facility for the museums and modern records division.

The Challenge

  1. Tight programme for roller racking area to achieve critical path
  2. Old mains electrical panel in plant room required decommissioning as part of the demolition works to the racking areas
  3. Deliveries logistics to an office block in the centre of a live and busy council depot

The Solution

  1. We ensured the roller racking area works started as early as possible to meet the critical path. The programme was designed to progress these areas to mitigate the risk of not meeting the handover with the roller racking in place.
  2. Requests made to the electrical board immediately for them to disconnect and remove the mains electrical panel but still meant some delay to works. To ensure this did not delay the overall programme, we progressed with other surrounding works whilst keeping the plant room out of bounds also mitigating any H&S risks.  The sequencing of the roller racking was swapped to ensure the programme stayed on schedule.
  3. We had to balance deliveries and a shared car park with the Council contractors with the use of a dedicated banksman and one way system. The challenging location meant that large vehicles could not always access the site.

The Results

  1. After the final demolition, the entire warehouse was re-screeded to ensure the smooth operation of the roller racking and the floor levels only have 5mm tolerance throughout the whole span of the warehouse.
  2. Once the old mains electrical panel had been safely disconnected and removed in the plant rook, the roller racking installation was accelerated so that the end handover date was met.
  3. Collaboration, communication and organisation with the Council were key to maintaining a good relationship whilst being efficient with deliveries and subcontractors.
5

Apprentices

94.5%

SME Spend

£147k

Added Value

10/10

Client Satisfaction

Client Testimonials

 “I would like to take this opportunity to thank you and your team for all of your efforts in bringing this project to a very successful conclusion.  Your pro-active ‘can do’ approach has made it a real pleasure to work with you all.  You collaborate more than other contractors. I find with Overbury nothing is ever a problem and we work together. You get on and deal with things, and there is a lot of trust.”

“On overall delivery you have strengths in all areas.  You have no weaknesses – from the day to day on site right through to finances.  You are the complete package.”

Contractor Performance | Commitments

Fair

100% payment within 30 days terms

Sustainability

8% waste diverted from landfill

Use of local subcontractors and materials had a positive impact on the local economy

Safe

Zero RIDDORs

Legacy

20 SMEs

5 beneficiaries

2 jobs created

152 trainee weeks

£500 donations to charity

Aftercare

Soft landings for handover

Dedicated Morgan Sindall point of contact

On-line portal for notifying any defects with 3 priority categories for response times

SCF Framework Manager

James Wright

Email: james.wright@hants.gov.uk

Phone: 07761 330560

Contractor Framework Manager

Alan Smedley

Email: alan.smedley@morgandsindall.com

Phone: 07967 686066