With the East Midlands set to benefit from a wave of investment, housing improvements and new transport links, jobs for contractors are on the rise. We take a glimpse at the work of ECA members in this prospering region

Go east, young member

Business continues to be buoyant for many of our members, and this is a trend that is set to continue, writes regional manager Chris Harvey.

According to recent reports, innovation and regeneration will be rife in the East Midlands during the next few years.

Over the next decade, Nottingham is set to benefit from more than £3.5 billion of investment to help regenerate the city centre and surrounding areas. Plans are for new housing, shops and offices, as well as parks, new waterways and community facilities.

In addition, the government has given the go-ahead for about £400 million of funding for phase two of Nottingham’s tram network, including two lines heading south and west.

New plans are also afoot for Leicester. The city is said to be undergoing one of the most extensive regeneration and investment programmes in the UK.

It is forecast that around £3 billion worth of investment is due to be pumped into the city over the next five years.

Developments in the city centre include the expansion of The Shires shopping centre, the building of a new multiplex cinema and a new £50 million Performing Arts Centre. In the Lee Circle area of the city, 1700 homes are planned.

Meanwhile, Derby is on track for having England’s fastest-growing job market in 2008. Expansion and improvements to the city centre mean that 3000 jobs could be created, while there are plans to rebuild the whole of Coventry city centre.

The education sector is also providing a boost to the region.

Loughborough University has been extended substantially over the past few years, Leicester’s De Montfort University city campus is benefiting from a £250 million regeneration project and £300 million is being pumped into the University of Leicester.

The current climate certainly appears to herald a number of fresh business prospects for the region’s contractors, and opportunities to get involved in the regeneration of the area.

Project file

A study in security

Students at the University of Bedfordshire are being kept in their place thanks to E7, a contractor based in Earls Barton, Northampton.

The firm has installed a complex access control system across 700 rooms in a newly built student accommodation development at the university’s Polhill campus.

With eight blocks of accommodation, each three or four storeys high, covering an area of approximately three-quarters of a kilometre, this was no mean feat.

Darren Hurley from E7 says: “The size of the project and the number of rooms and access combinations involved made for a challenging but interesting design exercise.

“We had to install an intricate access control system that would enable only specific students to access certain rooms and allow only university employees to access certain areas.

“With 520 bedrooms in total and 180 additional areas including communal kitchens, lounges, administration zones and storage rooms, the numerous possibilities required a particularly complex system that was both versatile and user-friendly.”

In addition to installing the access control system, E7 installed all the power and electrics for the new complex, as well as a fully integrated fire alarm system and CCTV network.

The company also fitted out all the kitchens with electrical appliances so that they would be ready for students at the beginning of term.

The contract was worth £16.7 million for main contractor Marriott Construction, with a subcontractor project value of £1.2 million for E7. The whole project was finished in 64 weeks and handed over to the client a week early.

BREEAM come true

Nottingham-based m&e firm Goodmarriott & Hursthouse has helped a super energy-efficient building in Leeds achieve the highest-yet BREEAM rating.

The Innovate Green building at Thorpe Park was completed last year for client Innovate Property. The £1.2 million project consists of two flexible office blocks linked by a feature street.

Goodmarriott & Hursthouse was awarded the design-and-build contract to provide high-specification m&e services to consultant King Shaw.

The building features the TermoDeck hollow core slab system, which uses a versatile energy-storage technique. The system utilises the hollow cores within pre-cast concrete floor slabs as ventilation ducts to produce a thermally stable environment.

Other green systems include combined heat and power generation, high-efficiency condensing distribution boilers and rainwater recycling. T5 and LED passive infra-red lamps were also installed, with daylight linking controls and high-frequency control gear.

The project was awarded a BREEAM ‘excellent’ rating of 87.5%. It looks set to reduce CO2 emissions to one-fifth of the typical emissions of a similar-sized institutional office.

Skerritt’s Jubilee year

Following the acquisition of an 18-acre site next to its Jubilee Campus, Nottingham University is investing £29 million in a scheme designed by Ken Shuttleworth, the architect responsible for London’s iconic ‘Gherkin’.

The first phase of the development will be a research and innovation park. G Skerritt has been brought on board by main contractor SOL Construction to handle mechanical, electrical and plumbing services in three new buildings on the development.

The project is worth £5 million and is expected to take 43 weeks.

The university’s Jubilee Campus presently houses the schools of education, computer science, IT and business. It has received plaudits for its sustainable design, which includes roofs carpeted with alpine plants to maintain steady temperatures and a series of lakes that provide cooling for buildings in the summer.

Training, advice and a whole lot more from Mountsorrel

Extending from Chesterfield in the north to Milton Keynes, and from Tamworth across to Skegness and the east coast of England, the ECA’s East Midlands region covers 7400 square miles and comprises five branches.

From the head office in Mountsorrel, just outside Loughborough, regional manager Chris Harvey plays a key role in supporting local members by providing advice on legislation and industry support, as well as organising seminars, training sessions, functions and branch meetings for more than 260 members from across the region.

In 2002, the East Midlands ECA office also became a Joint Industry Board-licensed centre, which has enabled Harvey to offer paper-based health and safety assessment testing. This has proved to be a success, with 2300 tests invigilated last year.

Industry training is a topic that the East Midlands ECA takes very seriously. The association has been proactive in encouraging and promoting the training of its apprentice electricians, and it has successfully nurtured excellent relationships with colleges in the area.

Six years ago, in a joint initiative with the local Employers Training Forum (ETF), the East Midlands region instigated an apprentice award in memory of former ECA regional manager Frank Elliot.

The accolade rewards the achievements of first-year electrical apprentices employed with EFT member companies, and it continues to grow in prominence each year.
The most recent winner of the award and accompanying £250 prize is 23-year-old Helen Stevens, an apprentice at Loughborough College, who works at her father’s electrical contracting business, FW Stevens Electrical, in Wigston.

Source

Electrical and Mechanical Contractor