TENNYSON ROAD - DECORATION

Tennyson Road Primary School is a large Pre 1920’s, split site school with three form entry with the aim of engaging students and enthusing them for a lifetime of learning. It is a busy environment offering pupils a range of extra-curricular opportunities.

The project was the refurbishment and re-modelling of the School, which was unoccupied, and is to become the Surrey Street campus for Tennyson Road Primary School.

The work involved structural alterations to accommodate the new layout, complete plant room upgrade, complete electrical rewire, data/phone installation, fire and intruder alarms, CCTV, drainage, new toilets, kitchens, offices, doors, classroom wet areas, ceilings and partitions, decorations, carpets, vinyl, repairs and decoration to windows, external works and paving.

Challenges / Solutions

We faced several challenges throughout the project, including;

Having to commence the programme inside term time whilst the buildings were occupied.  This meant that there were noise restrictions during the working day.  To ensure this requirement was met, the site manager scheduled for all drilling works to be undertaken out of hours and at weekends.

We also had to ensure that there was clear access to all buildings during school hours.  To achieve this we worked closely with Luton Borough Council, the Headmaster and the school faculty to adjust our programme to ensure that no works were carried out on any occupied buildings throughout the day.  Access was assured through the site manager who undertook a check of the access routes from the street to the working site and signed off each morning and evening that the route was always clear and safe. 

As it was a live site we had to ensure that absolutely no waste products were ever left on site.  We accomplished this by planning for the labouring team working on site to undertake a clearance each day, bagging up any waste and protecting it within the working area then taking all rubbish from the working area to Gilmartins own skip at the office each evening.

A further challenge we faced occurred once school had finished for the summer.  At this point we had 6 weeks to complete the remaining programme and ensure all works were signed off before the children returned for the new term.  To ensure all works were signed off satisfactorily the site manager reviewed the programme and built in additional resource to work across the different buildings in tandem, also providing additional working foreman to supervise the extra teams.