Leading building services contractor, Balfour Beatty Engineering Services (BBES), has completed a mechanical and electrical services contract as part of the creation of Strathclyde Fire and Rescue’s new training facility, a facility that is set to be the most advanced of its kind in the UK.
Designed by architects Cooper Cromar and built by main contractor Lend Lease, the 30 acre site in Cambuslang, South Lanarkshire, will offer specialised training for every modern emergency, including rail and road crashes, building explosions and blazes in high rise buildings.
A 5,000 square metre academic building is the centre piece, comprising a bespoke incident command training suite, lecture rooms, library, canteen and meeting facilities.
The £36 million ‘hub of excellence’ project has seen the creation of four zones dedicated to the main training areas of fire and rescue - residential, industrial, transport and academic. The residential zone contains tenement buildings, houses and a tower block. The industrial zone features lock-ups and a petro-chemical plant. The transport zone has a road network, an 80 metre stretch of motorway and railway track complete with tunnel, level crossing and platform. The facility also has a fire behaviour unit where firefighters will be trained to deal with flash-overs and other forms of fire behaviour.
BBES’ work involved a full mechanical and electrical fit out including water, power and gas to the main academic building as well as the numerous training buildings throughout the site. The training building, designed to provide the ability to recreate real life scenarios, also required data and CCTV services.
To minimise the facility’s environmental impact the building services design also included the installation of a biomass boiler, a wind turbine and a rainwater harvesting system. The rainwater harvesting system will use water collected from the main building’s flat roof for flushing the toilets.
To further minimise environmental impact and as part of BBES’ drive to create sustainable build solutions, elements of the mechanical and electrical package, including wiring, plumbing and the biomass plant room, were fabricated offsite at the company’s Modular Systems + facility in Wednesbury, one of the largest of its kind in the UK.
Created in a controlled environment, the components were delivered to site for efficient installation. Minimising site works, this approach offers a more efficient delivery method as well as a safer method of working as hot works and working at height are significantly reduced. In addition, waste is minimised and quality control can be carefully monitored with every component tested before being delivered to site.
As part of the project, BBES collaborated with consulting engineers Hulley and Kirkwood on a series of workshops to ensure sectional programme delivery dates were achieved. The workshops established which components would be prefabricated offsite and saw an innovation and engineered solution approach that was orientated around improving installation times to ensure the client’s milestones were met.
Playing an important role in the construction of the training centre were three apprentices from BBES’ craft apprenticeship scheme. They were among 15 apprentices on the build and are testament to BBES’ commitment towards the creation of a skilled and sustainable workforce.
Now complete, the project further demonstrates BBES’ ability to deliver complex building services solutions in a manner that is safe, efficient and sustainable.
