Wernick modular building at Mental Health Centre

Modular building from Wernick Buildings included brick facing and tiles on the pitched roof, together with all the doors, windows and fascias matching those of the traditionally built Health Centre.

Chelmsford's Broomfield Hospital has undergone some major developments recently.

These have necessitated the construction of new roads, one of which required the demolition of the hospital's old medical records storage building.

The replacement building - the 'Rowans' Medical Records Centre has a number of unique features built into its design.

Integral to the planning consent for this 305 square metre modular building from Neath Abbey based Wernick Buildings was the requirement that the brick facing and tiles on the pitched roof, together with all the doors, windows and fascias should match those of the traditionally built, Linden Mental Health Centre to which the new building is linked.

It was also specified that the bottom of the fascia boards should be no more than 200 mm above the fascias of the Linden building.

These planning consent restrictions meant that each modular unit had to be custom built and the pitched roof constructed on site to ensure that height restraints were not compromised.

In addition, the floor of the new building was strengthened to 10KN/n2 in places to take the weight of the special racking system in which the hospital's medical case records are stored.

Hayley Holloway, Wernick Buildings' site manager on this project had to spend far more time than is usual on site overseeing this special project.

The end result has pleased the client who has given the Wernick project a thumbs- up for quality and functionality.

"Hayley made sure everything was completed to specification and on time", commented Sandra Warden, the manager of both the Linden and Rowans buildings.

Sandra added, "The time factor was crucially important to us because we had to hire very expensive, secure storage for the medical records while the new building was being completed, and as everyone knows time is money these days".

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