Manchester has been one of the most popular destinations for young people in recent years, but the influx of newcomers has put the city council on the back foot as it strives to meet local needs. One area where the authority is seeing its resources stretched is in the provision of school places. To tackle this, the council has launched an ambitious programme through which main contractor ISG will deliver a raft of new schools and extended early learning facilities. 

“The growth in population across Manchester and the North-west as a whole has been phenomenal,” says Manchester City Council head of major projects Barney Harle. “There has been a perfect storm of factors that has seen huge pressure put on us to deliver educational places for all those new residents.”To relieve this pressure, the authority is using government grant funding to help progress the development of 10 schools in record time. 

ISG has already delivered two of the projects: a£3.1m Early Years Foundation Stage facility at St Margaret’s Primary and the£2m dining room extension at St Matthew’s secondary under the 2017 Educational Basic Needs (EBN) programme. 

Lightning Speed 

At St Margaret’s, the ISG team delivered the two-storey early learning facility on a section of the school in just three months. The job was so rapid that the team was still finalising the building’s design as Yorkshire-based offsite specialist Premier Modular was clearing the space on its production line.

The school now has a £3.1m Early Years Foundation Stage facility. 

Manufactured using a lightweight steel-framing system, there are 28 units in total. These provide more than 760 sq m of space across the two floors, which offer both large open-plan teaching areas and more typical classrooms.

“We have one base model for all the different projects,” says ISG senior design manager Jane Shaw. “We can accommodate design changes within that and incorporate end-user requirements to ensure the client gets exactly what is required.” 

However, the key is getting those requirements in as soon as possible, according to ISG senior project manager Warren Hough. “We have worked with our client and the end-users to get any changes or adaptations noted as soon as possible,” he says. “There has to be a design freeze at some point, but if we get those requests in early enough then modular systems can be very flexible.”  

ISG is taking the lessons learned in delivering these facilities onto its next challenge – the delivery of the remaining eight schools by September 2019. Most of these will be built in a matter of months using modern methods of construction with just work on the refurbishment of the existing Plymouth Grove Primary School carried out using traditional methods. 

Of the remaining seven schools to be delivered under the 2018 EBN programme, six are to be built using a modular prefabricated system, while the Armitage Primary School will be extended using structural insulated panels. 

“We knew that the solution would be to use modern methods of construction,” explains ISG framework director Neil Walker. “The schools were designed for manufacture traditional build techniques would have taken far too long, so offsite had to be the way forward.” 

The project team looked at various MMC solutions, but the lightweight steel-framed offering from PremierModular was soon adopted as the favoured approach by all, including the client. 

“I have experience with modular buildings and was happy for the ISG team to go down that route,” Mr Harle says. “What you can achieve in two weeks on site with a modular system will take you six months using traditional methods.” 

That focus on delivery has continued throughout the process and been carried from one project into another. Indeed,the benefit of having a single primary method of construction covering each school has seen iterative adaptations and improvements applied across all stages.  

The council and its ISG team have clearly backed the MMC approach to deliver the educational projects Greater Manchester requires. Completing 10 school projects in one city within 24 months will certainly represent a remarkable achievement for all concerned –and a ringing endorsement of modern construction methods.

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