Member Article

Work begins on multi-million pound school upgrade

A North Wales firm has begun a multi-million pound school upgrade at a site in Flintshire following a turf cutting ceremony.

Bodelwyddan-based Wynne Construction has been selected by Flintshire County Council as the main contractor to carry out the £4 million remodelling and extensions of Ysgol Glanrafon in Mold.

Having completed enabling works, which included a temporary site entrance for construction traffic and formation of the site village, works will commence on the new six classroom extension.

Bryn Roberts, site manager at Wynne Construction, said: “It’s fantastic to be officially starting the project prior to Christmas, having completed the initial enabling works programme.

“As a North Wales SME, we are all really looking forward to working with Flintshire County Council once again, with our priority on constructing the new classrooms and school main entrance in the initial phase of the programme.

“We are concentrating on the foundations of the new extension itself from now until mid-January. All sub-structure blockwork and the precast ground floor structure will follow on.

“Construction of the new main extension is set to run until the beginning of October at which stage, we will commence the refurbishment and enhancement works to the existing school building.”

Wynne Construction is able to erect the superstructure elements of the new extension in a short space of time by adopting its ‘fabric-first’ offsite approach, with all wall and roof panels manufactured within factory conditions.

Delivery of a series of panels allows quick erection with the building fabric being installed in just a four week period.

Bryn added: “This is a method we have utilised on a number of recent schools project.

“It’s high speed as it’s manufactured offsite and installed within a much shorter time scale, so you can go from nothing to a full building within four weeks.”

Flintshire County Council’s Cabinet Member for Education and Youth, Councillor Ian Roberts, said: “I am pleased that the work on site is starting on this exciting project.

“This will facilitate growth in Welsh medium education and use of the Welsh language in the County and will contribute to meeting the Welsh Government’s aim of one million Welsh speakers by 2050.

“It shows the Council is committed to providing additional Welsh medium provision and offering Welsh medium childcare or nursery provision.”

Wynne Construction operates throughout Wales and the North West of England, and regularly leads on projects in sectors including education, healthcare, commercial, housing and sport and leisure.

The company is also on the North Wales Construction Partnership (NWCP), for projects £2m – £10m in value, the South-East and mid-Wales Collaborative Construction Framework (SEWSCAP3) for projects valued between £10m – £25m and the South West Wales Regional Contractors Framework for projects valued between £5m - £9m. In November 2018, it was named SME (up to 250 employees) of the year at the UK-wide Constructing Excellence awards.

This was posted in Bdaily's Members' News section by Sam Harris .