North East contractor celebrates £9m worth of new contracts

A North East construction firm has announced a series of contract wins worth over £9 million.

Surgo Construction, of Newcastle, has been awarded contracts by Sacred Heart Catholic High School (Sacred Heart) in Fenham, the Royal Grammar School (RGS) in Jesmond and Durham University.

In the case of Sacred Heart and RGS, the contracts are two-fold, encompassing both new build elements and refurbishment works while the Durham University contract is solely refurbishment work, which the contractor is required to undertake over three phases.

On the first of the three contracts, which marks a welcome return to the school for the contractor, RGS is to invest significantly to enhance its existing facilities by creating a new [circa] 2,000sqm sporting facility. Split over two floors the new building will incorporate a 25m indoor swimming pool, associated changing facilities, first-floor sports hall, weights room, performance and dance studio, as well as a fitness room.

Externally the building will feature a viewing terrace overlooking the school’s outdoor sports pitches. Work on this project is expected to be complete in the spring of 2014.

At Durham University Surgo will soon commence a three-phase rolling programme of works to refurbish levels one, three and four of the Bill Bryson Library. These works will include a complete internal strip out and replacement of building services, floors and ceilings as well as replacement of some windows to the building’s external elevations in keeping with earlier window replacements.

This project is being carried out to completely upgrade the library as the University continues to make improvements to its estate and the learning environment for its students.

Finally, at Sacred Heart a two-storey extension to the school’s existing sixth form building will be constructed thereby, creating some 770sqm of floor space to accommodate a further 10 classrooms and additional facilities.

Once work on this first phase is complete, the contractor will take possession of the existing sixth form building and undertake a refurbishment of the original classrooms which are set out over two floors and cover an area of 560sqm. This work will call for some structural alterations, and the installation of new mechanical and electrical equipment, flooring and ceilings as well as decoration.

In each contract the contractor will apply traditional construction methods while overcoming the challenges of constrained timescales, live sites and the need to keep disruption to a minimum so that the schools and the university can function as normal while construction works are ongoing.

Surgo’s director, Jeff Alexander said: “Having recently secured work in new markets which we anticipate will lead to further work we are delighted that we have secured three new contracts within the education sector which has traditionally been a core market for us. “