Creation of a new campus to house all police teaching facilities within an integrated building

Police Learning Centre

South Wales Police wanted to integrate its teaching facilities in response to an influx of new recruits. It was to provide a four-storey building housing multi-use meeting rooms, 114-space lecture theatre, catering and dining areas, open atrium, offices, immersive training suites, virtual reality training rooms and changing facilities.

As a long-standing partner to South Wales Police, we managed delivery of this project through all stages, supporting delivery of a flexible usage facility built using high quality products with reduced maintenance requirements, and a strong design harnessing curved concrete walls and structural steel.

Designs needed to meet the exacting standards of building infrastructure services and IT, while adhering to the available budget.

Sourcing cost effective durable products to minimise future maintenance requirements was key to reducing the building’s lifecycle costs.

Working in a live site required maintenance of access and the decant of people from existing buildings which were to be demolished to make way for the Police Learning Centre.

Comprehensive stakeholder engagement during the early design stages allowed us to blend end user requirements, estates technical compliance criteria and environmental considerations. This enabled the creation of a striking and technically comprehensive vision for this class leading training hub. This ensured the team fully understood technical considerations, such as IT systems and the range of innovative learning settings being incorporated.

Low maintenance components selected included pre-finished wall panels, negating the need for plastering/tape and jointing to curved walls. These are highly durable and robust, negating need for re-painting every five to ten years.

Management of logistics of delivery within a live site included construction of a temporary haul road and managing several alternate construction access points.