Archived decisions
Hampshire County Council
Buildings, Land and Procurement Panel
6 June 2006 Pinewood Infant School, Farnborough
Report by the Director of Property, Business and Regulatory Services |
| How the conclusion in this report fits with the Corporate Strategy This scheme will impact on the delivery of all Corporate Aims, focusing most immediately on: Aim 5 - improving services: all users of the proposed new facilities will benefit from these proposals. |
Contact: Steve Clow Ext: 7858 e-mail: [email protected]
1 |
Summary |
1.1 |
Pinewood Infant School, Farnborough, was largely destroyed by fire in March 2003. The Cabinet decided on 13 December 2004 that Pinewood Infant School should be rebuilt as a one-form entry infant school (90 places) with speech, language and communication needs provision. |
1.2 |
Following the fire it was necessary to provide temporary classroom accommodation and this is currently being used, along with the surviving SCOLA 3 classroom, for teaching and administrative purposes. The SCOLA classroom will be refurbished as part of this scheme and it will therefore be necessary to provide a further double temporary classroom for the duration of the works, to decant the pupils from the SCOLA building thus facilitating the refurbishment works. |
1.3 |
The estimated cost of the works is £3,295,000, excluding fees. This cost includes provision of a temporary pre-school facility to be used while the existing SCOLA building is refurbished. £3,182,000, excluding fees, has been made available in the Education Capital Programme 2006/07. In addition, Rushmoor Borough Council is making a contribution of £43,000, excluding fees, and there is a School devolved capital contribution to the building of £70,000, excluding fees. |
1.4 |
The Director of Property, Business and Regulatory Services has progressed the design of the proposed additional accommodation and the purpose of this report is to outline the design proposals and seek approval to the attached design project appraisal. |
2 |
Scope of the Works |
2.1 |
The proposed new buildings will be located on the site of the original building, adjacent to the SCOLA building which survived the arson attack and currently occupied by the Pre-School unit and year R pupils. This building will be refurbished as part of the works. |
2.2 |
The proposed new buildings will provide accommodation for 90 pupils in three classrooms and also a 24-place Pre-School Unit. |
2.3 |
Other accommodation will include a main hall, kitchen, library, music drama room, language impairment resource provision base unit, staff and administration offices, toilets (to include accessible for both staff and pupils), hygiene room and associated storage areas. |
2.4 |
It is proposed that the works are carried out in the two phases: · new-build works - on completion the school to vacate temporary buildings · landscaping works - to be commenced following removal of temporary buildings from site. |
3 |
Fire Strategy |
3.1 3.2 3.3 |
The previous Pinewood Infant School building, a SCOLA mark 2 building was the target of an arson attack in March 2003. The fire originated in the bin store enclosure immediately adjacent to the school building and due to the nature of its construction the main building was destroyed other than the later SCOLA mark 3 extension that was connected via a pedestrian link. The site was made safe and the remaining extension refurbished. Hampshire County Council's policy regarding the installation of sprinklers, was originally introduced in 2003 and revised in 2004 to adopt a risk assessed approach to all capital projects, the objective being to reduce the risk of death or injury from fire with each project considered on its individual circumstances. As a result of the agreed risk assessment process, the recommendation of the Property, Business and Regulatory (PBR) Fire Safety Review Group, in collaboration with Hampshire Fire and Rescue Service (HFRS), is that an automated sprinkler system is not installed within the new Pinewood Infant School building for the following reasons: |
1 The building is non-residential, with daytime school use and possibly some community evening use. 2 The building is single-storey with fire escape exits direct to outside from most spaces. This ensures a prompt evacuation time. 3 The building will be evacuated well before a fire is sufficiently advanced to activate the sprinkler system in a particular room. Its installation, therefore, would make no improvement to the life safety of the building's occupants. 4 The building is designed to fully comply with current national standards, buildings regulations and legislation without the installation of a sprinkler system. 5 The building will be built to the latest construction standards and will include a comprehensive fire and smoke detection system with a direct link from the alarm system to HFRS via an external monitoring service, this will ensure a prompt response from HFRS; the building will have three one hour rated fire compartments and also those spaces that could have a potential fire risk such as the kitchen, stores, plant room etc will be constructed to a half an hour rated fire protection. This is over and above the minimum requirements stipulated by Building Regulations. 6 The bin store for the site is to be located well away from the building and in a locked, secure enclosure that would prevent a repeat of the original incident which caused the fire. 7 The HFRS have advised that the call-out response time for the school site is eight minutes from the local fire station. | |
3.4 3.5 3.6 |
The above factors resulted in the overall assessment of risk to life as low and the overall risk to property as low to medium. Throughout the risk assessment process formal consultation with the HFRS has taken place through the seconded fire officer to PBRS. HFRS agreed with the assessment in terms of death or injury from fire to the occupants of the building. Also, whilst there would still be a residual risk of loss or damage to the building from fire were sprinklers not to be installed, due to the nature of the proposed construction the spread of any fire would be limited and controlled. It is highly unlikely the whole building would be lost to a fire. Recent experiences in newly-constructed buildings, eg John Hanson School, has demonstrated that where fires were started maliciously, the spread is contained to one or two rooms and does not affect the operations of the whole building. Members should also note that the original school building which was destroyed was of an age and type that did not include modern fire compartmentation arrangements that limits fire spread. It is considered appropriate that the County Council's limited resources are targeted where there is a high risk and therefore some £4m has already been invested in fitting sprinklers to buildings where there is a definable benefit to life or property, eg Nursing Homes, Children's residential properties and large buildings where the loss of a service would have a major economic impact on the County Council which is not sustainable from its resources created specifically for fire damage. |
Section 100 D - Local Government Act 1972 - background papers
The following documents disclose facts or matters on which this report, or an important part of it, is based and has been relied upon to a material extent in the preparation of this report.
NB the list excludes:
1 Published works
2 Documents which disclose exempt or confidential information as defined in the Act.
Title Location
Architect's plans PMIS file
Building Profile Reports TMH
Hampshire County Council
Building Design Project Appraisal |
Executive Member - Education
25 May 2006
Buildings, Land and Procurement Panel
6 June 2006
Executive Member - Policy and Resources
16 June 2006
Project: |
Pinewood Infant School, Farnborough | |
New one-form entry Infant School | ||
Commencement date: |
July 2006 | |
Completion date: |
May 2007 | |
Planned year of start in accordance with Capital Programme: |
2006/07 | |
Recommendation:
That the building design project appraisal for the Pinewood Infant School scheme
be approved.
1 Finance
Capital Expenditure |
Current Estimate £'000 |
Capital Programme £'000 |
Buildings |
3,295 |
3,182 |
Fees |
518 |
508 |
Land to be purchased |
- |
_ |
Total |
3,813 |
3,690 |
Financial Provision for Total Scheme |
Buildings £'000 |
Fees £'000 |
Total cost £'000 |
1 From own Resources: |
|||
a) Capital Programme (as above) |
3,182 |
508 |
*3,690 |
2 Rushmoor Borough Council |
43 |
7 |
50 |
3 School - devolved capital |
70 |
3 |
73 |
Total |
3,295 |
518 |
3,813 |
* plus £125k for furniture and equipment
Building Cost - Net Cost = £1,836 per m2
- Gross Cost = £2,909 per m2
Devolved Capital allocations £'000
2004/05 19
2005/06 19
2006/07 25
2007/08 27
Total 90
Landlord funded work connected with this scheme
There are no landlord funded works associated with this scheme.
Value of land already acquired for this project
The overall school site has the potential for disposal for residential development, but Cabinet has decided to reconstruct the school on this site having considered the `opportunity cost'.
Value for Money
Factors taken into consideration during the development process to ensure that the project is delivering value for money:
· Procurement - the project is being developed as part of an innovative procurement strategy to deliver a number of new primary schools. Pinewood is one of four schools being developed together with two framework contractors, with the aim of achieving some commonality and repetition across the projects to facilitate economies of scale through aggregation both on building costs and the cost of resources. Performance indicators from similar packaging strategies, such as the provision of nursing care beds (Enhance) are demonstrating that such an approach is delivering significant efficiencies.
· Buildability/Specification - the early involvement of the contractor in the design development process has enabled them to contribute valuable experience, knowledge and expertise into achieving optimum design solutions in terms of buildability, quality and costs over the life of the building.
· Whole Life Costs - the development of the project has included an analysis of costs over the whole life-cycle of the building. A Whole Life Cost plan has been prepared for the project and benchmarked against similar projects carried out by the County Council. The WLC summary for this project compares favourably with Elvetham Heath, which is the last new primary school built by the county and therefore the most appropriate benchmark.
· Sustainability - the scheme has been designed with a strong sustainability agenda. An `excellent' BREEAM (Building Research Establishment Benchmark for Sustainability) rating is being targeted and will reflect in the longer-term benefits which will be delivered through low-energy use.
Revenue implications
(a) Employees £'000 |
(b) Other £'000 |
(a+b) *Net Current Expenditure £'000 |
(c) Capital Charges £'000 |
(a+b+c) Total Net Expenditure £'000 | |
Revenue Implications Additional+ /Reductions |
Nil |
Nil |
Nil |
200 |
200 |
Unit cost (£) (e.g. per place) |
- |
- |
- |
- |
- |
% variation to Committee's budget |
- |
- | |||
Number of additional Staff (fte) |
- |
- |
* The overall level of the revenue budget for funding schools will (from April 2006) be prescribed by central government, and capital projects have no bearing on the level of this budget. Therefore, this proposed project will have no bearing on the overall level of the Children's Services budget, extra costs and savings being met from the same overall schools' funding level.
Energy costs
The estimated annual energy consumption for the new accommodation will meet that required by current Building Regulations. It is anticipated that the increase in fuel cost for the school will be in the order of £7,136 per annum or £5.30 for each m² of accommodation. The CO² consumption will be 59 tonnes per year.
2 Details of site and existing infrastructure
Location/adjoining land and buildings
The school is situated to the northwest of Farnborough and is located within a large residential area. The northwest and northeast boundaries back on to residential properties, the southeast boundary is heavily treed with mature oaks and the southwest boundary has trees of varying species along its length and is shared with an adjacent recreation ground leased to Rushmoor Borough Council from Hart District Council. There is a small copse of trees that dissects the site from the temporary buildings through the centre of the site to the southwest boundary.
Area including comparison with local/national standards
The total site area is 2.4 acres (0.97 hectares). The DfES guideline for a school of this size is 1.08-1.33 acres (0.437-0.539 hectares). It is not feasible to release part of the site for a valuable alternative use.
Access
It is proposed to re-use the current vehicular access to the site from Pinewood Park as the main vehicular access to the site. The proposal includes a dedicated area for drop-off for the language impairment pupils. A turning area for vehicles has also been provided in this location to enable vehicles to leave the site in a forward gear.
Two pedestrian accesses on to the site are proposed, both located along the northern boundary - the first being located to the northeast (replacing the existing pedestrian access that was located adjacent the main vehicular access), the second to the southwest, leading directly to a parent congregation point for drop-off and collection of children.
The contractor's access for the duration of the works will be from Pinewood Park. It is proposed to locate the contractor's compound on Hart District Council owned land adjoining the school to the south. Agreement, in principle, has been reached with the landowner and detailed negotiations are in hand.
Existing buildings and temporary buildings
There are currently five double temporary classrooms to the rear of the site which are being used for teaching and administration purposes. It will be necessary to provide another double temporary classroom for the duration of the first phase of works. All temporary buildings will be removed on completion of the first phase of works and the area will be reinstated for play purposes.
Results of trial boreholes
A soil investigation report has been undertaken and indicates mostly a sand sub-strate. It is proposed to use shallow strip foundations for the building.
Mains services position
The existing mains services are considered to be of sufficient capacity to be extended and adapted as required to serve the proposed additional accommodation.
3 Scope of the Project
Type of project, layout and facilities provided
The scheme will provide a purpose-built one-form entry school with Pre-School and specialist resource provision, to include the following accommodation:
· 3 classrooms
· main hall
· library
· music/drama room
· Language Impairment Resource Provision Unit Base
· 24-place Pre-School Unit
· staff and administration offices
· pupils toilets
· accessible toilets for both staff and pupils, to include hygiene room
· other support facilities including plant and caretaking store
· community stores and kitchenette
Places provided
The school will provide 90 places, with an additional 15 places in the Language Impaired Resource provision.
4 The Proposed Building
Type of construction, finish and appearance
Generally the building is arranged with three steeply pitched linear blocks perpendicular to the existing SCOLA block. The Pre-School Unit, Year R and the community space are to be located within the existing SCOLA building (to be refurbished as part of the scheme). The main teaching spaces, school hall, administration accommodation and services areas are housed within these steeply pitched roofed forms. The general teaching spaces and library use the volume of these areas to create a large open space internally. The classrooms and hall will have roof-lights to maximise daylight levels.
The pitched roofs are connected with glazed internal links which cover the main circulation routes through the school, forming a courtyard. The main pedestrian entrance into the school is located between the main hall block and the administration/library block and is accentuated with a raised canopy above the level of the circulation route.
It is proposed that the SCOLA building be stripped back to the frame, floor slab and roof deck and reclad.
The construction materials have been chosen to complement the architectural context and landscape of the existing site, as follows:
· natural slates to the pitched roofs
· timber boarding to the gables of the pitched roofs
· good quality stock brick to external wall panels
· timber and aluminium faced glazing system
· high-performance membrane to other roofs
· painted exposed steel frame.
Accessible facilities
The building has a consistent finished floor level throughout with all final exits having level thresholds. The external landscape has been designed with various level changes with ramps, etc, designed in accordance with the latest building regulations.
A hygiene room and two further accessible toilets will be provided, one of which can be used by the community during out-of-school hours.
One accessible car parking space will be provided.
Heating and ventilation systems
All new-build will have underfloor heating. The existing SCOLA accommodation will continue to be heated by radiators and ceiling-mounted convector heaters.
The buildings will incorporate assisted mechanical ventilation due to noise from the nearby M3 motorway, in accordance with DfES and Building Regulations requirements.
Fire risk assessment
The previous Pinewood Infant School building, a SCOLA mark 2 building was the target of an arson attack in March 2003. The fire originated in the bin store enclosure immediately adjacent to the school building and due to the nature of its construction the main building was destroyed other than the later SCOLA mark 3 extension that was connected via a pedestrian link. The site was made safe and the remaining extension refurbished.
Hampshire County Council's policy regarding the installation of sprinklers, was originally introduced in 2003 and revised in 2004 to adopt a risk assessed approach to all capital projects, the objective being to reduce the risk of death or injury from fire with each project considered on its individual circumstances.
As a result of the agreed risk assessment process, the recommendation of the Property, Business and Regulatory (PBR) Fire Safety Review Group, in collaboration with Hampshire Fire and Rescue Service (HFRS), is that an automated sprinkler system is not installed within the new Pinewood Infant School building for the following reasons:
1 The building is non-residential, with daytime school use and possibly community some evening use.
2 The building is single-storey with fire escape exits direct to outside from most spaces. This ensures a prompt evacuation time.
3 The building will be evacuated well before a fire is sufficiently advanced to activate the sprinkler system in a particular room. Its installation, therefore, would make no improvement to the life safety of the building's occupants.
4 The building is designed to fully comply with current national standards, buildings regulations and legislation without the installation of a sprinkler system.
5 The building will be built to the latest construction standards and will include a comprehensive fire and smoke detection system with a direct link from the alarm system to HFRS via an external monitoring service, this will ensure a prompt response from HFRS; the building will have three one hour rated fire compartments and also those spaces that could have a potential fire risk such as the kitchen, stores, plant room etc will be constructed to a half an hour rated fire protection. This is over and above the minimum requirements stipulated by Building Regulations.
6 The bin store for the building is to be constructed 6m from the building to ensure there is no potential for spread of fire from this enclosure.
7 The HFRS have advised that the call-out response time for the school site is eight minutes from the local fire station.
The above factors resulted in the overall assessment of risk to life as low and the overall risk to property as low to medium.
Throughout the risk assessment process formal consultation with the HFRS has taken place through the seconded fire officer to PBRS. HFRS agreed with the assessment in terms of death or injury from fire to the occupants of the building. Also, whilst there would still be a residual risk of loss or damage to the building from fire were sprinklers not to be installed, due to the nature of the proposed construction the spread of any fire would be limited and controlled. It is highly unlikely the whole building would be lost to a fire. Recent experiences in newly-constructed buildings, eg John Hanson School, has demonstrated that where fires were started maliciously, the spread is contained to one or two rooms and does not affect the operations of the whole building.
Members should also note that the original school building which was destroyed was of an age and type that did not include modern fire compartmentation arrangements that limits fire spread. It is considered appropriate that the County Council's limited resources are targeted where there is a high risk and therefore some £4m has already been invested in fitting sprinklers to buildings where there is a definable benefit to life or property, eg Nursing Homes, Children's residential properties and large buildings where the loss of a service would have a major economic impact on the County Council which is not sustainable from its resources created specifically for fire damage.
Health and safety
A designer's risk assessment and a design health and safety plan, in accordance with Regulation 15 of the Construction Design and Management Regulations 1994, have been undertaken for the proposed scheme.
5 External Works
Car parking
The existing school staff car park to the northwest of the site is to be retained, providing 10 car parking spaces, one of which will be an accessible space. The car park will be segregated from the pedestrian areas by a 1.2m high fence for safety purposes.
Landscape proposals
The landscaping proposals include:
· informal hard play areas accessed directly from the classrooms, library and circulation areas
· soft grassed areas that could be enhanced by the school as part of the landscape development plan
· low-level planting around the building and the edges of the external play areas.
Situation on site and environmental impact
The new Pinewood Infant School has been carefully designed to minimise any adverse environmental effects to the site. The location of the new school re-uses the site of the original school building on what is essentially a brown field site. The existing building is re-used, albeit that it is completely refurbished. The temporary buildings that are currently on site will be removed at the end of the construction project and the site re-landscaped.
To enable the project to be built, a number of the smaller existing trees will have to be felled to allow a safe working environment. However, these trees are being replaced with new along the northeastern boundary.
6 Planning
Planning approval was granted in March 2006.
7 Building management
Existing arrangements will apply to cleaning, catering, local management and maintenance arrangements.
8 Furniture and equipment
A sum of £125,000 has been included in the Children's Services Capital Programme 2006/07.
9 Professional resources
Architectural Services } Property, Business and Regulatory
Quantity Surveying } Faithful & Gould
Electrical and Mechanical Engineering } RHB
Structural Engineering } Price & Myers
Landscape } HED
10 Consultations
The following have been consulted during the development of the project: Headteacher and Governors of the school, Children's Services Department, Environment Department, Access Officer, local County Councillor.