Constructing Excellence in Wales

Stradform Limited has won the innovation category of this year’s Constructing Excellence in Wales (CEW) awards for a £17 million contract being undertaken for South Wales Police Authority. The contract comprises the construction of a new Divisional Police Headquarters at Cardiff Bay on the site of the former police station, ground studies of which revealed a high level of contamination due to long term storage of petrol and diesel.

 

High Vacuum Extraction (HVE) was used to remove the contamination, a system rarely applied to construction operations, but which enabled Stradform to commence construction work whilst remediation work was being undertaken. It also avoided the need to excavate the entire site and the subsequent transportation to landfill.

 

Another sustainable feature of the construction process was that the demolition of the former police station provided 2,500 tons of hardcore which was re-used in the construction of the piling mats.

 

In addition to the value-engineering element of the contract, Stradform proposed an innovative solar lighting system that has never been used before, whereby a series of ducts will capture daylight from the atrium roof and transfer it to the prison cells via a series of 18 metre solatubes and lightboxes.

 

Commenting on the award, John Worrall, Managing Director said: “it’s a great accolade for Stradform to have won the Constructing Excellence Award for “Innovation” in Wales, and we are looking forward to taking the new Police Headquarters through to the National finals in November”.