A football tournament this week (hosted for Windrush Valley School) gave a prefect opportunity to view the new Sports Centre from the Astro Turf and to explain to lots of visitors quite what we are building. It certainly created quite a buzz and we now look forward to many of our alumni seeing it for the first time at Chill on the Hill, on the 1st of June (hope you can join us!).
With the Sports Hall block work largely complete, it is now easy to imagine a netball or football match taking place. It always amazes me how spaces change in feel as they are build, feeling at times smaller than planned and then often once the walls are complete, suddenly much bigger.
The internal walls downstairs have also progressed and the offices, stores and changing areas are now all identifiable. The area to the left in the picture below, will be the Reception and the area where the gentleman is working will the the Sports Office.
The process to start the cladding to the Sports Hall has begun, with the stone work complete and the installation of the brackets underway. The panel brackets need to be placed pretty precisely, as there is almost no tolerance in the panels, in order to ensure a tight and aesthetic fit.
As the rooms are formed upstairs and down, the containment for the services, such as ventilation, continues and the pipework leading back to the plant room is running to plan.
Unfortunately the final installation of the roof panels is slightly delayed, whilst adjustments are made to the fit. Luckily, a delay in this area is not critical to the time line that needs to be maintained to meet the planned completion date at the end of October. On a positive note, the wet weather combined with sunshine has got the plants off to a good start, with yellow flowers beginning to come through already.
Whilst the School is open for business on Monday, the site will be having another short week following the bank holiday, but we hope to see the first cladding panels moved into place.
Cat Thompson and Nanci Austin