Speaking as a lifelong resident of Belfast, it is great to see and be part of the current construction boom in the city-centre.
I am currently involved with MSM Contracts on a number of major city-centre construction projects in Belfast. These include three major hotel projects, Ten Square, Hampton by Hilton and the Holiday Inn Express. Our company is also undertaking the redevelopment of a former linen warehouse, Armagh House on Ormeau Avenue, into a modern commercial building.
From first-hand experience of working on such projects, I am very aware of the many challenges involved in managing city-centre construction projects.
On the newbuild 178-bed Hampton by Hilton hotel project in Hope Street, the building footprint occupies most of the site and is bounded on all sides by busy roads and an adjacent high-rise building. This leaves limited space to accommodate temporary site facilities and other activities we need to complete the work.
Prior to commencing each project, we assess the works to ascertain the most effective and efficient way of servicing each site, determine if there are any access restrictions and if we require any road or footpath closures.
On the Ten Square Hotel project, we hosted an information morning with neighbouring retailers, businesses and Belfast City Centre Management. Understandably, several traders voiced their concerns about the potential detrimental impact on their trade. We discussed these concerns and, where necessary, modified our proposed methodologies to reduce the impacts.
We operate procedures to identify potential risks and pre-empt any issues which could impact on the programme delivery. These include the preparation of comprehensive project programmes, buildability reviews and look-ahead schedules to decide how best to co-ordinate labour, plant and materials coming to the site. Detailed programmes identifying key dates for erection of scaffolding and hoarding on public footpaths ensures all consents and approvals are received in a timely manner.
Major logistical issues with restricted city-centre sites includes accommodating material deliveries and vehicle parking, while minimising traffic build-up and risks to safety of road users and pedestrians. To counteract these difficulties, we implement “just in time” deliveries and co-ordinate material deliveries/collections during off-peak times at designated offloading areas. We seek to provide car parking either on-site or as close as possible. We pre-notify our construction team members and supply chain of parking arrangements and traffic management controls.
Removal and collection of waste from demolitions and excavations creates risk by placing operatives and members of the public near large plant and machinery. To alleviate these risks, we implement strict traffic management controls to direct people away from the plant operating in loading areas, employ traffic marshals and erect strict segregation controls.
City-centre works increasingly require out-of-hours working to minimise disruption and inconvenience to local businesses. On the Hampton by Hilton hotel project, our site team and subcontractors placed 810 of concrete in a monolithic pour to the ground floor slab. This was supplied over 102 loads during a 10-hour period starting at midnight on a Friday. On the Ten Square Hotel project, we removed a steel fire escape staircase serving seven floors from a central core in an operation that required a complete road closure to position a large mobile crane and lorries. This work was carried out successfully over three consecutive Sundays.
The lack of space in which to manage and carry out the various tasks has so far presented many challenges in the management of health and safety on-site. There is a continual need to ensure everyone working on the site operates safe systems of work to address any health and safety issues to themselves and members of the public. Prior to starting any operation, particularly those where there is little room to safely co-ordinate the works e.g. erecting scaffolding adjacent to a busy thoroughfare, we complete a comprehensive appraisal to identify the risks and put procedures in place to mitigate against them.
Even though we implement robust security measures on each site, we have experience of break-ins, materials stolen and parkour runners on our scaffolding. Finding new and innovative ways of keeping the sites secure is an ongoing challenge that all construction companies face, particularly on city-centre sites.
The management of the construction processes on these city-centre sites will be kept under continual review to identify and address other emerging challenges.
*This article was originally published in Northern Builder Magazine.
