sbh ensures business as usual for Macmillan during new warehouse build

16-07-2008

Warehouse and distribution property specialist sbh has recently completed a new £6.5m, 110,000ft² storage and distribution centre in Pontarddulais near Swansea for Macmillan Publishers Limited. As Project Managers and Planning Supervisors, sbh successfully ensured that Macmillan’s existing operations continued without disruption - while managing a complex programme that involved both construction and demolition works, upgrading and diverting services, installing various temporary facilities and keeping access open for neighbouring businesses.

Completed within the scheduled 48-week programme and within budget, the single span, steel portal facility includes a 10.2m internal height zone for eight-level high palletised book storage and a low-bay 6m high marshalling area to serve the new loading bays.

The project started with a number of preparatory works to maintain power, gas and telephone services to Macmillan’s existing promises. They included demolishing two storage units and offices on the footprint of the new warehouse, diverting and upgrading the HV electrical supply, working round a new high pressure gas main installed by national grid and diverting telephone lines. In addition, to maintain the site in full operation during the project, sbh.uk organised temporary car parking and mobile office accommodation, and a temporary loading bay yard with access from the existing unit.

Working closely with Macmillan’s team, the main contractor and other suppliers, sbh managed each stage closely to ensure that activities dovetailed smoothly with each other so that all services were maintained - at the same time minimising multiple excavations, avoiding additional Utility costs and keeping the programme on schedule.

The new facility has been fitted out with a range of modern services including a new IT system and communications room; and site fire alarms installed when building work started, then adapted and maintained during works. The warehouse is protected by a new sprinkler system, and LPG heating has been installed into both the new warehouse and parts of the existing facility.
Macmillan is a leading international publisher of academic, fiction and non-fiction publications. Founded in Scotland in 1843, the company brought the works of writers such as Charles Kingsley, Matthew Arnold, Lewis Carroll, Tennyson, Thomas Hardy and Rudyard Kipling to the world.
sbh has project-managed warehouses and distribution centres for many of the country’s leading retailers including B & Q, Halford, Maplin, Superdrug and T K Maxx.

Main contractor: Chalcroft Construction Ltd
Engineers: Freeman Wilson and Clay Ltd
Services design and installation: C A Sothers Ltd