Crown Garden Centre

Springfield Steel Buildings were approached by Crown Garden Centre, Whitley, North Yorkshire to provide a quotation for a full construction package.

The garden centre had already secured the planning for the building through their own architect and had the basic drawings for layout of the internal offices.

The building to be constructed was to be used as a retail building incorporating a commercial sit-down café where customers could stay for a warm drink, bacon sandwich or even full Sunday dinner.

SSB incorporated the original drawings and designed a 30m long x 20m wide x 3.6m high fully insulated steel framed building. To the front elevation was an integrated 30m long x 8m wide canopy that was a fully open sided canopy.

On the elevation between the canopy and the retail building, full height aluminium framed glass panels were incorporated to allow as much of the light to transfer into the building as possible.

Springfield Steel Building acted as the principal designers & the principal contractor under the Construction (Design and Management) Regulations 2015.

The building regulations drawings and notifications were handled through SSB using our LABC approved inspector, Quadrant building control.

A full structural package was supplied by SSB which included the full steelwork design and the foundation design and floor slab construction.

As the building was a commercial & retail specification, the building was required to incorporate a sub-floor, underfloor heating, air source heat pumps, solar panels along with the liquid floor screed to the underfloor heating.

SSB started the project in May with the ground works element of the project. Once the LABC inspector has approved the construction of the floor slab, a concrete pump was used to deliver the 100m3 of C40 ready mix concrete.

Starting at 7.00am the concrete was delivered using 16 concrete wagons with a delivery approximately every 15 to 20 minutes the day was a rather busy one to say the least.

A week later and the plant including 2 diesel mobile elevated working platforms and a 14m telescopic forklift supplied by Aplant (now Sunbelt Rentals) was onsite and ready to unload the 30 tonnes of cold rolled steel supplied by BW Industries.

Where possible its always good practice to manufacture columns and rafters at ground level to ensure working at height was reduced to a minimum.

Once the steel work was complete as with all our buildings at SSB, we then employed the services of our specialist FASET registered safety netting & handrailing company. They install a full secured perimeter handrailing to the steel structure and install netting to the full 30m x 28m to ensure any operatives that could fall from the roof structure, do so without any injuries. This is the minimum protection in the HSE’s hierarchy for controlling working at height.

The insulated cladding was supplied by Kingspan Insulated Cladding was the Quadcore KS1000RW profile with 120mm to the roof and 80mm to the walls in their moorland green BS12B17 colour.

Colour matching steel personnel doors for the fire escape doors were supplied by Strongdor.

As with all construction projects, certain elements of the design and finishes change throughout the construction timeline and this was no different although the size of the building remained the same.

SSB then supplied the shop front windows and doors through our trusted subcontractors Phoenix Aluminium.  SSB also carried out the internal works including the blockwork, plaster finish, paint finish, joinery and plumbing.

External works included the drainage installation including the installation of a 25-man commercial specification sewage treatment plant, block paving to the underside of the canopy and the management and coordination of specialist subcontractors including commercial electricians, solar panel installation, air source heat pumps, underfloor heating and liquid screed installation.

The whole process including the end snagging taking approximately 20 weeks and the overall budget for the completed works was in excess of £450k.

All in all from Springfield Steel Buildings view, the whole project was very good to get involved with, it allowed us to showcase our full range of skills and standards on construction workmanship to a commercial project that gets visited by thousands of people everyday. Clarification on the review left on our Google Business Page by Mr Stephen Megson of Crown Garden Centre, Whitley, North Yorkshire.