Case Studies
Clean Extreme Treatment Prescribed For Yorkshire Hospitals
A massive development programme has recently been completed by Balfour Beatty Construction Ltd for Mid Yorkshire NHS Hospitals Trust.
With a capital cost of £318 million, the construction of new acute in-patient facilities at Pinderfields General Hospital in Wakefield and a new diagnostic and treatment centre at Pontefract General Infirmary was Yorkshire’s biggest PFI (Private Finance Initiative) project to date.
For Doncaster Crown Decorating Centre which supplied all the Crown Trade paint and sundries required for the interior decor, this was the largest project they had ever been involved with. Almost 70,000 litres of paint was delivered to the two sites during the two programmes of work, including the largest volume of Crown Trade Clean Extreme Scrubbable Matt ever used on any project, in any sector of the market.
Not surprisingly for Doncaster based Magill Painting & Decorating Contractors this was the biggest project they had ever undertaken, worth over £1.2 million. As proprietor Simon Magill said, “Any contractor large enough to be able take on these two jobs for the same client at the same time would have loved to have been in our shoes.”
The specification demanded a very hardwearing, scrubbable finish for all broadwall areas and extensive colour availability. Whilst the predominant colours specified by the architects were slate grey and white with a faint hint of blue, over seventy different colour mixes were required for feature walls across the two sites.
“We proposed Crown Trade Clean Extreme Scrubbable Matt which we knew would meet the spec in terms of performance and colour offer, and as it turned out, this helped Balfour Beatty in their value engineering and enabled them to make significant cost reductions across the project.
We started on Pontefract Hospital back in July 2008 and a few months later sent the first few men into Pinderfields to start work there too. There was an incredible amount of work to get through but it was all very professionally planned and scheduled. Balfour Beatty organised the project like a military operation!
We were using Crown Trade Clean Extreme Scrubbable Matt on almost every area of broadwall and Crown Trade Satin Finish on all interior joinery and trim. Every ward, side room, corridor, staircase dispensary, store room, treatment area and office had to be painted…everywhere in fact with the exception of the kitchen and the operating theatres, which had pre-finished panels installed.
We saw firsthand how tough Clean Extreme really is – Balfour Beatty were expecting my men to have to do a lot of ‘snagging’ as we were painting on a building site most of the time, but the tough scrubbable finish really lived up to its name. Where there were marks and scuffs left on walls, the cleaning staff soon got them off with wet cloths so there was very little for us to go back to, and this shaved even more money off the total job costs.”
Simon Magill – Proprietor
With a project of this scale, Simon needed total reliability from his paint supplier and he turned to the Doncaster Crown Decorating Centre where he has been a customer for over 15 years. “This was a mammoth order for the manager Ricky Thorpe and his team, but in return they’ve given us absolutely fantastic service,” he said. “We kept them extremely busy throughout the project and they never once let us down. They had to do a phenomenal amount of colour mixing for us and keep us permanently stocked up on site with three deliveries a week. At the peak Wakefield Crown Decorating Centre stepped in to help, just to ensure we never ever ran short of supplies”
One of the biggest challenges for Simon and his team was the decoration of the vast atrium at the entrance to Pinderfields Hospital. “This was an enormous area to decorate spanning four floors,m with glass everywhere, including the elevators. We had to bring in a cherry picker and a scissor lift to get the upper elevations painted. There were different trades working there at the same time but Balfour Beatty co-ordinated all the work in this area very well, insisting on very stringent safety procedures.
Because Pinderfields was completed in phases, many of the facilities became operational whilst contractors, including Magills, we were still hard at work. Simon commented: “This meant that we all had to be extra vigilant as we were working next to hospital staff, patients and members of the public, separated only by temporary safety doors. In fact we had to work in some very sensitive areas, including the mortuary which had to be treated with great respect. This obviously put extra restrictions on when we could get work completed, but we still managed to meet all our schedules.
“Most of my men were involved with the decoration of one or both of the hospitals, including three young apprentices who worked under supervision at Pinderfields. This was a great opportunity for them to see a major project through from start to finish, all the way through their training
“Now that the hospitals are both fully operational, delivering a fantastic state-of the art service for the local population, we’re all very proud of what we have achieved.
I don’t believe another project as big as this will ever come our way again. To be honest, it crossed my mind at one point that I might have taken on too much. But what I hadn’t bargained for was the professional way Balfour Beatty organised the project and the great support I got from Crown Paints and my two local Crown Decorating Centres. We also had great Crown Trade products to work with which enabled us to deliver the attractive colourful interiors and long lasting low maintenance finish our clients wanted, not to mention a significant cost saving, which was a great”.
bonus.”
Simon Magill – Proprietor
