MMC 5541 48 Nov'15 cc

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New ‘super school’ built offsite
MMC Magazine looks at how the London Borough of Barking and Dagenham has embraced factory fabrication to help
meet its rapidly rising need for education places.
The 23,000 square metre Riverside Schools scheme is one of the largest
education projects now under construction and will provide additional
places for one of the fastest-growing school-age populations in the UK.
Barking and Dagenham has one of the highest
growth rates of school age children, driven in
part by an ambitious housebuilding programme
which is already under way. As a result there is
the need for the primary school and SEN
facilities to be delivered ahead of the rest of
the campus, with these being set to open in
time for the start of the next academic year in
autumn 2016. The flexibility of the Yorkon
offsite solution is making this not just possible,
but practical - while the whole project is due for
completion in spring 2017.
The pressures on the UK’s education
system are well documented and
increasing, but the solutions far less
evident. However, in East London the Yorkon
Group company, Portakabin has been
instrumental in helping deliver what is
believed to be the largest ever offsite contract
in the education sector..
The Riverside Schools scheme in the London
Borough of Barking and Dagenham covers
23,000 square metres and stretches from
nursery to age nineteen across three free
schools, with the £44 million cost coming from
the Education Funding Agency. Portakabin’s
contract for all of the “curriculum spaces” was
awarded via the council’s Thames Partnership
for Learning.
When complete the campus will accommodate
a 10-form entry secondary school, a 630-place
primary school, a special educational needs
(SEN) school, and a nursery. It will also offer
extended provision outside school hours as well
as wider use at weekends and during school
holidays; to contribute to the local community.
Roger Leighton is Chief Executive of
Partnership Learning which will operate the
three schools on the campus, and commented:
“We have had a very good first-hand
experience of the Portakabin Group’s offsite
solutions as our schools currently occupy two
earlier phases on a site near the planned
Riverside Schools campus. We have been really
impressed with the quality of the finished
buildings, the speed of construction, and just
how far offsite technology has now advanced.
“The Portakabin Group makes good use of
architectural design to the benefit of the users
and to enhance the internal environment. As
an example, our strong preference is for 75
square metre classrooms which are
significantly larger than the 56 square metre
classrooms required by the Department for
Education. With careful design and planning,
use of a Yorkon offsite solution gives us the
flexibility to achieve this and for almost the
same budget – which is a very key benefit.”
Speaking to MMC Magazine during the Offsite
show at London’s Excel Centre, Simon Ambler.
Director of the Portakabin Group said: “We
have been building a very good relationship
with the London Borough of Barking and
Dagenham – this is our seventh project for the
council. The contract demonstrates how the
Yorkon building solutions can be employed to
meet the urgent need for school places, and
early engagement here has been important
because of the borough’s desire to build to nonstandard
sizes.”
The group has invested in a new plant in York
which feature’s Europe’s largest press for such
systems, while also developing a new system
that is not only flexible in terms of its space
dimensions but also the way it can link to
existing buildings
Simon Ambler concluded: “We expect this
project to change the face of off-site
construction in the education sector.”
www.yorkon.co.uk
“The Portakabin Group makes good use of architectural design to the benefit of the users and to enhance the
internal environment. As an example, our strong preference is for 75 square metre classrooms which are
significantly larger than the 56sqm classrooms required by the Department for Education. With careful design and
planning, use of a Yorkon offsite solution gives us the flexibility to achieve this and for almost the same budget.”
Roger Leighton, Chief Executive of Partnership Learning.
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