Nuclear Decommissioning Authority (NDA)

Didcot, Oxfordshire

Project Details

Client

Nuclear Decommissioning Authority

Project Manager

Avison Young

Architect

Avison Young

Contractor

Morgan Sindall (Overbury)

Value

£2.4m

Contract Period

32 weeks

Procurement Type

Design & Build

Form of Contract

JCT D&B

Size

1600 m2 GIFA

Project Brief

The West elevation of Building 329 was the subject of a CAT B fit out, on the ground floor this will include wings G,H,J & K, cores 2 & 3 and link 2. To the first floor fit out works were to wings J & K and core 3. The existing WC blocks on the ground floor and first floor, although within the site demise, were not the subject of any works.

Overbury took overall responsibility as principal contractor for the whole of the above areas and coordinated their works accordingly with adjacent tenants and the landlord contractors at the east end within building 77.

The floor plates included works to provide open office space complete with office desks and enclosed meeting rooms and offices; new comms and patch rooms to both floors. Existing carpet finishes remained in the majority of areas with new feature carpet to various walkways and offices. Decorations completed to all areas in line with finishes plan. Amendments to services were carried out to align with the new layout and occupancy levels. Kitchenette, and post room provided to the ground floor and a kitchenette to the first floor. Services  included Access control, FA, CCTV, Intruder alarms and data to all areas.

The west elevation entrance was altered to accommodate new revolving entrance doors, with extended external paved landing and steps. Internally the entrance was fitted out with security speed lanes, reception desk, visitor WC and security office including ceramic floor tiles throughout.

All external windows had Anti Shatter clear film applied.  The north of wing K had a sliding wall installed to provide a large conference room or 2 x smaller seating areas.

Due to the known presence of ACM, this required specialist attendance to accommodate removal of base build structures to facilitate the installation of services and finishes. Fixing of high and low level components were the subject of strict procedures to negate penetrating through the known ACM.

New service and drainage connections and ducting required both external and internal excavations.

Key Challenges

This could not be removed as encased within the base build floor slabs across the entire area.  We had to re-sequence all works and re-programme the works to allow the asbestos contractors to “deal” with installing our fixings and provide us with service penetrations before handing the areas back to us following air clearance certificates being issued.

This encompassed all services, specifically at high level.  We achieved this by installing 4000 meters of Uni-Strut to suspend all services and ceilings from it. The Uni-Strut was fixed by our specialist Asbestos Contractor using circa 8000 fixing bolts.  Fixing of components to floor was also problematical as limited to depth of fixing so we did not penetrate the Asbestos. Re-designed base units and fixings and depth gauges on drilling tools were used.

This meant that we and our security contractor had to under go security clearance checks, with our security contractor being subjected to extensive checks by the NDA authorities.

Distribution of all security designs and drawings could only be carried out via a specific PC located within NDA premises. Displaying of any designs or drawings could only be done on any floors above 1st floor level, all items had to be removed at the end of the working day and placed under lock and key.

Project Takeaways

Our Success

  • Overcoming all of the asbestos related issues and maintaining programme.
  • Overcoming all of the security related requirements leading to maintaining an excellent relationship with our client.
  • Assisting the client with communications between them and their landlord in resolving getting the LTA ( licence to alter) agreed, we did this as we had  a very good relationship with the landlord from a previous fit out for them.

Our Learnings

  • The extent of the external excavations became an issue, this was mainly attributed to obtaining information from 3rd parties which took some time. However, once received, we were able to reconsider our methodology and were able to overcome unforeseen issues within programme.

KPI’s & Statistics

ContractGateway 2 Planning Gateway 3 Contract AgreementVariation
Cost£2,105,632£2,105,6320%
Time29 weeks31.3 weeks+2.3 weeks