18 June 2014
Foremans Provides New Academy with Interim Classrooms to Meet Demand for School Places in London
Foremans Relocatable Building Systems, the UK's largest supplier of refurbished Portakabin buildings, has supplied two interim teaching buildings to a secondary academy in the London Borough of Enfield, just eight weeks from receipt of order. The project is Foremans' second scheme for the Cuckoo Hall Academies Trust (CHAT).
Heron Hall is a new secondary academy which has opened with a three-form year seven intake of 90 pupils and is building on the success of Cuckoo Hall Academy, operated by the same trust and one of the UK's first primary schools to achieve academy status. Foremans also constructed teaching facilities for Cuckoo Hall to accommodate its year three pupils.
David Laws, Minister of State for Schools, has announced that 417,000 extra school places are urgently required by 2015 following demographic changes (source: Targeted capital funding for new school places, gov.uk). Heron Hall is providing much needed secondary education to pupils in the Enfield area and is helping to address the serious shortfall in school places in London.
Foremans has constructed two self-contained interim classroom buildings for use by Heron Hall Academy while redevelopment works are carried out at its new permanent site at Ponders End. The facilities have been financed by the Education Funding Agency and built using 18 refurbished steel-framed modules. They will be in use for the next two years and have been configured to provide four specialist classrooms, two science laboratories, toilets and a library.
Commenting on the project, Martin Hesketh, Director of Finance and Operations at Cuckoo Hall Academies Trust, said, "We were keen to use refurbished and recycled interim buildings from Foremans for our latest project because we were so impressed with the teaching facilities provided for Cuckoo Hall. This is an ideal solution for our situation because it enables us to maintain the highest standards of teaching while redevelopment works are carried out on another site."
"We are very satisfied with the accommodation and pleased with Foremans' performance. The speed and cost benefits of refurbished modular solutions far outweigh site-based construction and when Heron Hall moves to its new site, CHAT is hoping to retain the interim classroom buildings for re-use by Cuckoo Hall as a specialist science block."
Foremans delivered the modules just eight weeks from receipt of order and supplied the buildings around 70 per cent complete with M&E services, plumbing, doors and windows already in place.
Heron Hall is the first secondary academy to be opened by the Cuckoo Hall Academies Trust and it is anticipated it will grow to become an eight-form entry school with a total intake of 240 pupils per year.
Foremans offers a wide variety of modular solutions to help meet the increasing and urgent demand for school places, from interim classrooms for short-term use to fully refurbished teaching blocks and extensions to existing school buildings.
The advantages of this approach include:
- Programme times reduced by up to 70 per cent
- Off-site working is maximised for safer, quieter and cleaner sites and reduced disruption to teaching during construction
- High quality steel-framed modular buildings are built to last
- The buildings require fewer ground works than site-based construction - further reducing cost, disruption and programme times.
For further information about refurbished Portakabin buildings for schools, academies and colleges, visit www.foremansbuildings.info, email info@foremansbuildings.co.uk, or call 01964 544344.
Editor's Notes
1. Foremans offers the UK's largest selection of refurbished Portakabin buildings available from stock. It provides a nationwide service from its 30,000sqm production centre in East Yorkshire and its southern operational centre in Hemel Hempstead.
2. Foremans has a full range of construction services, including planning advice and submissions, Building Regulations approvals, funding options, and all aspects of the building design, space planning, project management, ground works, fitting out, delivery, site installation, testing and commissioning.
3. Foremans is part of the Portakabin Group.
4. Foremans, Portakabin and Portakabin Group are registered trademarks. Portakabin is a registered trademark which must only be used to refer to modular buildings that are known to have been manufactured by the Portakabin Group. Please note, Portakabin is not a generic term.
5. Cuckoo Hall Academies Trust (CHAT) runs and manages three primary academies and one secondary academy in the Enfield area: Cuckoo Hall Academy, Woodpecker Hall Primary Academy, Kingfisher Hall Primary Academy (primary sector) and Heron Hall Academy (secondary sector).
