Project Spotlight: Heathrow Airport food facility

Tolent completed a £4.5 million refurbishment contract to provide a new airline food assembly facility at Heathrow Airport.

Working with Michael Drain Architects, Tolent renovated an existing distribution unit with the installation of commercial dishwashers, cold and ambient storage, food package assembly areas, dispatch areas, a bonded store and associated welfare facilities. Michael Drain said:

“The new facility had had a complex, evolving brief and a very tight timeline. We found Tolent to be Professional and pro-active – they worked constructively alongside the Professional Consultancy team in order to successfully deliver the project.”

“Meetings focussed upon how to solve problems and progress the project, rather than on contractual issues, and we were able to discuss issues frankly, in the knowledge that both sides resisted the desire to score contractual ‘points’. Tolent gave a confidence about their delivery such that when fully mobilised, you could physically see the works taking shape in real time. Issues discussed in meetings would often be resolved and implemented before you left site that day.”

Project Spotlight: Bridon Rope Facility, Neptune Energy Park

This £9 million rope manufacturing facility is at Shepherd Offshore’s Neptune Energy Park development on the banks of the River Tyne. The project includes complex pits and trenches up to 5m deep and a building featuring a steel frame with a mixture of internal blockwork walls and external cladding. Areas of innovation on the project included solar panels and grey water tanks.

Tolent worked closely with the clients and their teams to make the project run as smoothly as possible. The local authorities stipulated that ground water was not to enter the river or drainage systems, and ground water lagoons were devised. Relationships and collaborative working are high priorities for Tolent - we always want to get the best from a project to the benefit of the whole team.

Project Spotlight: Cross Dock Warehouse

Tolent completed £18 million works in Wynyard comprising the design and construction of a warehouse unit with external hard standings/yards, car parking and circulation areas designed to accommodate the use by a logistics operator, together with works required by Clipper Logistics Group. The footprint of the one building includes offices covering 31,846 square metres.

The completed development included a steel propped portal frame construction providing 14.0m clear internal height to the underside of the haunch, profiled metal cladding to roof coverings incorporating 5% rooflights, 50kN/m2 floor loading to FM2 Special, two storey admin/welfare offices, two hub offices, 44 dock loading doors, 5 level access doors, car/lorry parking, service roadway, site access road and roundabout from an existing spur.

Project Spotlight: Trax Park Distribution Warehouse

Valued at £15 million, Tolent’s contract required the construction of Phases 1 to 3 of the rail connected Trax Park development in Doncaster which included a large site remediation package and construction of all the site infrastructure including a large sustainable drainage scheme with reed beds to store and filter storm water run off whilst creating a natural habitat for birds and wildlife.

The project covered 40 acres and includes three large distribution warehouses located adjacent to the main East Coast Railway and near to the local motorway network. The warehouses were steel construction with cladded envelopes and floor slabs constructed to FM1 and FM2 all with dock leveller and level access doors. Construction included high quality office space and external service yards.

Project Spotlight: Nimbus Park Distribution Centre

Tolent completed a contract valued at £21 million requiring the construction of a 750,000 sq ft distribution centre at Nimbus Park, the largest speculatively built distribution centre in the UK. The site required extensive ground stabilisation utilising vibro concrete plugs and lime stabilisation to provide a platform for the building. Major highway works and surface water attenuation were also completed as part of the project.

Tolent dealt with key issues such as existing HV overhead cables bisecting the site - working in close proximity to electricity supplies, Tolent had to enforce a restriction on use of equipment and methods of construction. We also had to address issues relating to adjacent railway lines – the proximity of the rail lines to the building meant continual liaison with Network Rail.

Project Spotlight: Lymedale Cross

Valued at £13.3 million, Tolent’s work on this project required the design and build a of 432,000 sq ft Regional Distribution Centre in Newcastle under Lyme for Helioslough Ltd. The brief was to construct a high bay warehouse, which nestled in the valley and blended with the surrounding countryside. On one side the scheme bordered a residential housing estate and this had to be catered for aesthetically, acoustically and from a landscaping point of view.

The Warehouse was 16 metres to the eaves, with a three storey office block, 2 continental size level access doors, 4 normal size level access doors and 38 dock levellers. Tolent achieved solutions addressing constraints by the local planning authority, the shape of the site, overhead power cables and the client’s requirements for a certain size of unit.