Background
In 2014, the aging police custody suite in Wrexham was unfit for purpose. Alongside the earlier closure of Mold custody suite, developing an ‘out of town’ facility, the North Wales Eastern Command and Custody Facility (ECC) to serve both Wrexham and Mold offered the most economical solution to secure the long-term future of police infrastructure for North Wales. North Wales Police (NWP) identified a suitable location (an industrial site in Llay, close to Wrexham), and developed a design to RIBA Stage 3. A business case based on the retention and re-use of the existing warehouse was approved and the procurement process to construct the ECC, via the North Wales Construction Framework (NWCF) was launched in 2015.
The challenge
Surveys carried out at Invitation to Tender (ITT) indicated the warehouse didn’t hold the structural capacity required to accommodate the adaptions ECC required. A full new build solution was needed, putting the future of the whole project in jeopardy. Galliford Try and its design partner, PCE Ltd, a UK market leader in the construction of precast concrete and prefabricated construction systems, proposed a pre-cast concrete frame solution, offering NWP cost and programme benefits. Using this approach, the structure was fabricated off-site with each unit of the frame developed in a controlled factory environment, transported to site and lifted in place. This solution has delivered the construction quicker, more accurately and safer than a traditional build.
