Gary Court is a nine-storey, mixed tenure, high-rise building that is home to 150 residential apartments and a mix of commercial units in Croydon. The residential properties are a mix of leaseholders and social housing, managed by the Hyde Group, who are the freeholders for the building and who applied for funding from the Building Safety Fund when it was confirmed that the original building materials were non-compliant with regulations introduced following the Grenfell Tower fire.
Hyde appointed Equans UK & Ireland and Martin Arnold Ltd who, in turn, selected Hamilton to deliver the full facade remediation following other successful partnership projects such as Artisian House in Bermondsey. Based on a major arterial route and busy high street above a row of shops, and with residents still living there during the works, Gary Court was never going to be an easy job.
The first and most significant challenge was the absence of the ‘as built’ drawings and information, which details how the building was built against original plans to give an exact picture of the finished scheme. Without this crucial data, the team had to carefully measure all external façade substrates and manually calculate and overlay the systems.
Additional complexities included a short timescale for completion and the site itself was extremely tight, which meant just-in-time deliveries were required throughout. The Hamilton team arranged offsite storage to ensure the entire project ran smoothly. Led by Senior Contracts Manager Dave Wylde and Site Managers Dragos Lacureanu and Elonas Bubnelis, our teams replaced the existing rendered EWI with Wetherby Building Systems’ fully accredited A2 rated system.
We also removed the traditional brickwork elements of the piers around the façade and applied Wetherby’s Insulated Clay Brick Slip System directly to the concrete frame. The zinc cladding was remediated with Valcan’s A1 VitraDual cassette system before we worked on the terracotta areas and re-fixed the original tiles.
All insulation and fire barriers were replaced with ROCKWOOL’s non-combustible products and all the sheathing board across the building is now RCM Y-Wall board. Despite a few issues due to the great British weather, the job was completed with stunning results.
Dave Wylde said:
We knew from the start that this job was going to be complicated. Gary Court is on a main road and busy bus route and in the absence of the ‘as built’ drawings there was a lot of pre-planning work that needed to be done before boots hit the ground onsite.
Elonas and Dragos, the Site Managers, collaborated with our experts and the skilled teams from Equans and Martin Arnold to tackle challenges within a tight deadline. Their relentless dedication and collaborative spirit proved that when teamwork meets determination, success follows.
Tony Elliott, Divisional Director at Equans added:
It was an absolute pleasure to work with Hamilton on another successful Building Safety Fund project.
The dedication of the entire team has truly elevated the standard of excellence on this project and their hard work, expertise and commitment to quality have been instrumental in making our collective vision a reality.
Removing and reinstating over 4,500m2 of brickwork, including the 3,500m2 of cladding remediation work carried out by Hamilton, is no mean feat; a huge thank you to everyone involved.
The Building Safety Fund is designed to bring buildings up to the highest standards of fire safety to protect residents so it is incredibly satisfying to work on projects that will make a real difference to people for years to come.
Daniel Mackie, Director at Hamilton, concluded:
Our teams, alongside the experts at Equans and Martin Arnold and our fantastic supply chain partners, came together to deliver first class results on this project.
The building has since been inspected and received an A1 rating – the highest that can be issued by a fire engineer, which is excellent news.
This means that residents can rest assured the building contains no combustible materials and homeowners can now sell and remortgage their properties.
The £10million project was awarded £6.4million from the Building Safety Fund, which has become a cornerstone in promoting public safety, encouraging sustainable development and enhancing quality of life for all.
We have amassed a portfolio of successful projects funded by government schemes and our extensive collection of case studies and client recommendations serves as a testament to our commitment to quality and customer satisfaction.
We’re delighted to add another BSF funded project to our ever-growing list of success stories.
