FOREMANS WINS £1m RECYCLED MODULAR BUILDING CONTRACT AT SELLAFIELD

14 May 2009

Foremans Relocatable Building Systems, the UK’s largest supplier of pre-owned modular buildings, has been awarded a £1m contract to supply office accommodation at Sellafield in Cumbria.

The contract awarded by VINCI Construction is for a fully refurbished three-storey office building to be located at the Sellafield Nuclear Plant. It will initially be used as project offices for the Silos Direct Encapsulation Project – a waste retrieval scheme, and one of the largest construction projects to be undertaken at Sellafield in recent years.

The use of a recycled and refurbished modular building is highly sustainable, up to 70 per cent faster and provides a cost saving of up to 50 per cent compared to new build.

Delivered to a challenging timescale of just five months from receipt of order, the 2100sqm building will be fully fitted out with new internal fittings and will arrive on site complete with windows, doors, partitions, plumbing and a large proportion of electrics pre-installed.

Constructed from 60 steel-framed modules, the building will provide open plan and cellular office accommodation for around 170 staff, a reception area, conference and meeting rooms, kitchens on each floor, toilets and a locker room.

Commenting on the choice of a pre-owned modular building for this project, Bruce Wilson, Programme Delivery Manager at Sellafield Ltd, said, “We need to accommodate staff during this major construction project, and were impressed with the Foremans approach. It allows us to benefit from the cost, speed and sustainability advantages of recycling and reconfiguring modular buildings.”

“By re-using the building structure, we are reducing energy consumption and carbon emissions, minimising waste sent to landfill, as well as reducing the cost of the accommodation by around half and with no compromise on the quality of the offices because the modules are refurbished.”

The use of recycled modular buildings is one of the most environmentally sound methods of construction. It generates less than 10 per cent of the carbon emissions and uses less than 3 per cent of the energy during construction, compared to a newly manufactured building of equivalent size (source: MPBA/Arup).

It is also highly thermally efficient. In England, tests for air permeability on pre-owned modular buildings are not compulsory. However, in independent tests, Foremans recycled modular buildings have performed up to 80 per cent better than Building Regulations requirements. This means reduced energy consumption, and lower running costs and carbon emissions.

Foremans specialises in the supply of quality recycled and refurbished modular buildings, designed to individual project requirements. In addition to its sustainability benefits, the approach offers a range of other advantages:

- A cost-effective alternative to new build
- Programme times for high quality temporary or permanent accommodation are reduced by up to 70 per cent.
- Off-site working is maximised for safer, quieter and cleaner sites and reduced disruption
- The buildings can be easily expanded, reconfigured or removed if space requirements change
- High quality steel-framed modular buildings are built to last and require fewer groundworks than traditional site-based construction – further reducing cost, disruption and programme times.