Balfour Beatty Engineering Services, the company behind the mechanical and electrical services powering the award winning London 2012 Aquatics Centre, is to supply £2.7m worth of mechanical and electrical infrastructure to a new leisure centre in Ashington in Northumberland.
The project, which consists of two pools, sauna and spa treatment areas, a gym, sports hall, café and an ultra-modern library with superfast internet, will be supported by an M&E system providing lighting, power, fire systems, access systems, CCTV, ventilation, heating and cooling.
A 70kW combined heat and power unit is being installed on the project which will supply power to the new development.
Working with main and professional services contractors, Balfour Beatty Engineering Services will use its Building Information Modelling (BIM) service for client liaison, planning the delivery and installation of large equipment and clash detection. BIM has also helped the team to accommodate detailed requirements on temperature and ventilation.
Balfour Beatty is committed to supporting graduates and apprenticeships and 10% of employees on the project will be supported in a formal apprenticeship. In line with the company’s commitment to spend £1bn with local SMEs in 2014, 50% of the direct and indirect workforce employed on the project will be from the north east region.
Dave Lawson, Balfour Beatty Engineering Services Regional Director for the north east, said: “Balfour Beatty Engineering Services is an experienced M&E provider for leisure facilities in the country, having worked on the award winning Aquatics Centre for the Olympic Games and the nearby Olympic standard Sunderland Aquatic Centre delivered in 2008.
"We look forward to working with our partners to deliver this major new development in Ashington to a very high specification using our leading technological approach in BIM and our off-site manufacturing facility, Modular Systems +.”
Service installations commence in mid-November and it is expected that the new facility will open to the public in September 2015.
