The Bemrose School – Education Estates Awards

We are delighted to confirm that The Bemrose School project has been shortlisted at this year’s Education Estate Awards in the Refurbishment of the Year category. Placing learning at the centre of our solution, this regeneration scheme brought an outdated estate up to modern standards, delivered within a live environment. Comprising extensive refurbishment of this locally listed 93-year-old school over 3 phases, we blended traditional, modern, and innovative refurbishment construction methodologies to provide high-quality education facilities whilst retaining The Bemrose’s heritage character. The project was delivered in consultation with Derbyshire County Council’s Heritage Officer to ensure full compliance with listed building regulations. A new build extension and landscaping completes 5 overall phases. To provide an enhanced learning environment and improved sustainability (e.g. energy efficiency), works included internal reconfiguration/refurbishment, full slate roof strip and re-installation, full window replacement, structural steelwork repairs, brick 2 of 3 rebuilding, exposed external concrete repairs, and complete M&E replacement. The new M&E systems ensure reduced running costs, diverting money to educational needs. With the inherently complex works within an expansive listed building, our team had to constantly adapt and reassess the programme and methodologies as our site investigations uncovered previously unknown issues, e.g., steel reinforcement to degraded concrete. Thank you to all involved for all of the work that has gone into this and the impact this will have on pupils’ and staffs’ lives and ultimately education. I can most definitely say that every pound has been well spent for the pupils of today and also into the future.I have been at the school for 20 years…I’ve never received so many positive comments about the...

Success at the Constructing Excellence Yorkshire & Humber Awards

We’re proud to have picked up two awards and one highly commended at last week’s Constructing Excellence Yorkshire & Humber Awards: Diversity and Inclusion – Kier Group (Winner)Client of the year – Leeds City Council at Newmarket House (Winner)Building project of the year – Newmarket House (Highly Commended) Diversity and Inclusion is recognised as a business imperative, and following the first company-wide audit in 2021, a D&I roadmap was created to outline our plans for the next five years. Since then, amongst other things, we’ve enhanced our family friendly policies, become an accredited Real Living Wage employer, launched four new employee networks and introduced the Expect Respect campaign, designed to educate employees on the importance of inclusive language and communicating our zero-tolerance approach to bullying and harassment. We’re delighted that our work to create a new home for Leeds City Council’s environmental services has also been recognised. Newmarket House features a range of measures focusing on sustainability and achieving Net Zero Carbon including 50 electric vehicle charging points, LED lighting and roof-mounted PV arrays. Our approach to building this fantastic new facility included carbon-offset design, use of recycled materials and energy efficient components throughout design development. Congratulations to everyone...

Completion of Richard Place Apartments

We have recently completed Richard Place Apartments, one of two buildings within the Sailsbury Green project for the University of Edinburgh, delivered through the Scape framework. The works consisted of carrying out a soft strip, involving the removal of existing kitchen units and floor coverings, before installing modern replacement kitchens, hard and soft floor coverings, new decoration to all walls and ceilings, and installing new blinds and curtains to windows. We also carried out fire-stopping improvements and modifications to the existing extract systems. Whilst the apartments are now complete, Mansion House has two weeks remaining before handover. Both buildings will be used as student accommodation and are about a 12-minute walk apart. Upon handover, the final value for the project will be circa £1.2...

Laura Brown – Graduation

Laura Brown, Business Development Manager, recently graduated with a First Class BA Hons degree in Business Management. Laura was supported by Kier in her decision to return to education after beginning her career in Fashion and was awarded the ‘Court Medal’ title by her University at the ceremony on Tuesday. Nostalgically, Laura’s graduation ceremony was just across from one of our Heritage sites in Scotland, the restoration of Paisley Museum for Renfrewshire Life. Since Laura was a key contributor to the team that won this project for the Scotland region, it made the event even more special. Laura is a passionate advocate of women joining the Construction Revolution and her dissertation focused on what more can be done to support women into managerial roles within the industry. Watch this space as we’ll be sharing a blog from Laura on this...

Completion of Litherland High School

Works have recently been completed to the £1.8m extension works at Litherland High School. Procured through the Scape framework, the alterations and modifications to the existing high school have provided a through school for students aged between 3-18 with the neighbouring Litherland Moss Primary School being integrated into the high school. Works included altering the internal layout for early years and key stage one teaching and providing new external works. Richie Robinson, Framework Manager, said: “Well done to all of our team involved for a successful handover of Litherland High School Phase 2 works, delivered in a live working environment with lots of intricate phasing, ready for the primary school to migrate over to form a new through school.Great work by our site team Dwayne Callender BSc (Hons) MCIOB, Jake Edwards, Chris Hawes and our supply...