Newton Aycliffe steel firm Finley Structures has won praise from a main contractor as it continues to work on a high-profile North-East sports development.
Construction firm Galliford Try awarded family-run Finley Structures a contract to fabricate and erect 640 tonnes of steel for Durham University’s expansion of its sports facilities.
Work started earlier this year on the £31m development at Maiden Castle, on the outskirts of Durham city.
The facility, once completed, will include an indoor cricket hall, a 12 court multi-use sports hall, suitable for international and national competitions, a martial arts dojo, fitness suite, purpose-built recovery facilities and high-performance weights rooms.
Once the new facility is ready in August 2019, the existing centre will be refurbished, increasing the facilities for fitness classes and building a specialist sports laboratory.
A ground-breaking ceremony was held in August as Finley Structures started work on fabricating the steel, which has now been erected on site.
Galliford Try senior projects manager Paul Mares said: “Finley Structures have been involved with the Maiden Castle project from our initial bid, assisting the erection sequence and value engineering, ensuring both Galliford Try and our client have a robust price and programme. Throughout the design stage both Finley Structures and their design team have been proactive in managing the process to ensure they arrived on site as planned. Once on site the team have been a pleasure to work with, the frame and metal decking packages have been erected safely, to programme by a team who have identified any potential issues in advance and worked with the wider team to resolve ensuring no delays have been incurred. This has not only been noticed by Galliford Try, but also our client who has commented on the speed of erection. I look forward to working with the team again.”
The Maiden Castle development is the second major project to be awarded from Galliford Try this year, with Finley Structures also currently working on a 930-tonne contract at the CTAR Building in Leeds.
