Over the past year, AF Protection Limited have been working successfully with Interserve to provide remedial passive fire protection upgrades across a range of facilities that they currently manage. At present, there is an ongoing contract at Devonport Dockyard for the Fleet Accommodation buildings which is expected to draw to a conclusion early in the new year. There have since been two other successful contracts – Cornwall Schools PFI and Cornwall Fire Stations.
The first contract, Cornwall Schools PFI, involved fire stopping, cavity barriers and fire door upgrades across sixteen schools during summer holiday and half-term periods in 2016. AF Protection were first required to follow inspection reports to complete a host of immediate upgrades and corrections across all of the schools during the summer holiday period. Operatives on site were required to protect and clean their work areas frequently to avoid any damage, whilst also liaising with facilities management on a daily basis to ensure that schools remained secured at all times. These works were all completed successfully and on time. Following this, it was then decided that any and all remedial works that were needed within the schools should be done over the half-term break. This programme was tremendously restricted given the quantity of work required and the time frame set by the client. However, AF Protection endeavoured to complete the project in its entirety before the new term began by co-ordinating three teams on the ground simultaneously across all of the schools. The work required long hours and weekend working but we are proud to say that the work was completed ahead of schedule much to the delight of the client. Gary Martin from Interserve Construction Limited said, “[AF Protection’s] commitment to management of resources and work required within a certain time period have earned them the respect deserved in a supply chain member who as they commit to.”
The success of this project directly led to AF Protection being contracted to complete similar remedial passive fire protection upgrades to a number of fire stations located across Cornwall. Though the programme and processes required were similar to the previous project, there was a key difference – the fire stations were occupied and fully operational every day. This meant that operatives on site were required to communicate with staff on an almost constant basis as to avoid any interruption to the vital procedures on site. Teams worked at an exceptional pace through the eleven fire stations completing a host of applications including fire stopping, fire door upgrades and cavity barriers. Whilst working at St. Austell fire station, operatives were required to work night time shifts to avoid the aforementioned disruptions whilst working above ceiling grids to install building-wide cavity barriers. Prior planning and preparation was essential every evening to ensure operatives had sufficient material and access to complete the works without delay. All the fire stations were completed successfully, on time and to the satisfaction of the client with certification following shortly afterwards.
These projects were a demonstration of a continuing and long-valued working relationship between AF Protection Limited and Interserve Construction Limited, and included working to restrictive deadlines, workforce co-ordination over an entire county and effective communication between involved parties. The two combined came to a final value of approximately £70,000 over a three-month period.
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