Redundant Milking Shed given new lease of life

Pineapple Developments were praised at the opening of the new self-contained office development that gave redundant milking shed a new lease of life.

Dorset-based Pineapple Developments were praised for their project management skills and their abilities to expedite installations of essential supporting services, in particular telecommunications, at the opening of the new self-contained office development - to be known as Leaze Barn - at Park Farm, Lydiard Tregoze, Swindon.

Leaze Barn was the original milking shed at Park Farm when milking churns were the means of transporting milk from the farm to the regional dairy.

The building first became redundant in the early 80s when the farm transferred their milking to a herringbone parlour just down the road.

Since then it has been used for storing food stuffs and rearing lambs, among other things.

When the farm finally discontinued milk production the Rumming family actively pursued new ways of providing an on-going revenue stream and ways to regenerate under-utilised assets.

The position of Park Farm, 3 miles from the M4 and on the outskirts of Swindon, made the proposition of converting redundant farm buildings into offices attractive but was not a decision that the Rumming's took lightly particularly as the area has a surplus of office space.

However, after enlisting the help of local agricultural land agents Webb Paton and undertaking their own extensive research visiting other such conversions, Mr and Mrs Rumming decided to go for planning permission and convert the old building in to a commercial office.

Once planning permission had been obtained, the next major decision for the family was how to go about it.

Said Mr Francis Rumming: "Although some may consider that they could manage such a project by themselves; I recognise that my expertise is in farming and if I wanted to ensure that the development was a success I needed to engage a firm that had proven experience in similar conversions and who would be ultimately responsible for ensuring that the project ran smoothly, to time and to budget.

Through recommendation and after visiting their development at Pineapple Business Park in Bridport, Dorset, I appointed Pineapple Developments to manage the project on my behalf".

Before the conversion was complete, Leaze Barn had its tenant, Openda, an IT company that designs and supplies software solutions to the distribution industry".

"Openda had been looking for the right premises for some time as Samantha Sellers Openda's Operations Manager explains: "Having spent 18 months looking for the right premises, we certainly new what we didn't want".

"Although Swindon has a high density of office complexes and business parks offering a diverse range of facilities, they all have one thing in common, sterility.

As a software company we expect our employees to be creative and build robust user friendly systems to meet the requirements of the ever demanding customer".

"Attention to detail is critical and is not easily applied in noisy, open plan and sterile environments".

"When we first saw Leaze Barn it was nothing but a shell, but even in this raw state it felt right".

"A relaxing, calm and quiet (except for the odd moo) environment, that allows people to concentrate and produce the level of work that our customers demand".

Pineapple Developments has been responsible for every aspect of the project from the design of the scheme to the delivery of the completed building ready for letting.

This has involved designing, tendering and subsequently selecting the building contractors, liaising and managing the supply of all major utilities and negotiating with the letting agents.

The official opening of Leaze Barn took place on Wednesday 2nd November when Mr Rumming thanked all involved and proudly handed over the keys to Samantha Sellers of Openda.

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