The station is the final of four community fire stations to be constructed in Gloucestershire as part of a multi-million pound 25-year PFI contract that was awarded to Blue 3, a consortium comprising Kier, Reliance and Calderpeel Carden Croft, which will design, build and maintain the new stations on behalf of the council.
The project has seen Kier Construction's central operations building the new facilities at four locations throughout Gloucestershire, with new fire stations recently completed at Uckington and Keynsham Road in Cheltenham, and Churchdown in Gloucester. Each of the stations has been built with specific community facilities included so they become true community assets. The Shepherd Road station is in the final stages of construction and is also the location for the innovative community life skills centre, SkillZONE.
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The Kier team and the CIOB decided that the Shepherd Road station would be the ideal project for members of the CIOB to visit, giving professionals including architects, building surveyors, commercial managers and building contractors, an opportunity to interact first hand with the built environment, improving their knowledge and contributing to their continuous professional development. The site visit, which included a 2.5 hour technical tour, enabled the visitors to see a construction project through the eyes of a project manager and the opportunities and difficulties that the industry provides with PFI projects.
Vice Chairman of the CIOB for the Gloucestershire region, Martin Herbert, sent a letter of thanks to the Kier team after attending the site visit, he commented: "Thank you for your guided tour yesterday evening, which was gratefully received by the CIOB.
"It was an excellent demonstration of the challenges faced and overcome when dealing with a large PFI project that has difficult interfaces and various construction technologies. The CIOB group consisted mainly of architects, building surveyors and a couple of other regional contractors who were all impressed with Kier's commitment to delivering a quality project."
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