RoyalLiverpool

Wernick Provide Fast-Track Welfare for Hospital Project

By Wernick Hire Ltd in Industry News

The new building work at Royal Liverpool Hospital is no small undertaking. Main contractors Carillion are not only creating a new development for Merseyside’s busiest hospital, but are adding a cutting edge Biocampus to the site of the old hospital building. The site is active 24 hours a day, 7 days a week with over 1,000 operatives on site at any time. 

If a site is working all hours of the day, then the site welfare needs to deliver. To cater for such a busy site, Wernick Hire provided a 39 bay welfare complex, complete with canteen, industrial kitchen, drying rooms, toilets and showers.

Carillion chose Wernick for being the most competitive on price, and promising the quickest completion time. It was important for Carillion to use local labour on the project wherever possible, and so units and operatives were all locally sourced from Hire’s Widnes Depot. 

Whilst preparing the ground for the welfare site, Carillion discovered asbestos, not once – but three times! As such there were considerable delays to the programme surrounding installation, due to the need for safe disposal and ground testing. Carillion couldn’t move back the hand-over date for the completed welfare site, so the Wernick team had to work fast to ensure the site was ready for over 3,000 operatives (3 shifts of 1,000) to descend on the day the project officially began. 

Once the building was in situ the Hire crew worked long days and through weekends to have everything ready for handover just 14 days after delivery. 

Depot Manager, Joanne Elwell was proud of how the Widnes team worked together to pull off the delivery; “We were delighted to be awarded the contract by Carillion but the timescale presented to us was a challenge.  What initially started off as a five week installation programme was actually reduced down to two weeks due to the presence of asbestos on site. It was like a military operation to get all the various trades in to complete the works. Our sub-contractors are owed thanks for helping get everything together in time; particularly Refrigeration Yorkshire, Jon Cuff Electrical and D Cain Haulage. Widnes Foreman, Dean Sharples, worked tirelessly to keep the programme on track; it was an amazing team effort.”

Logistics Manager, Terry Packer, was impressed with the dedication Wernick showed to getting the site ready; “Dean and the team were absolute stars. They worked through all the challenges presented to them and got the job done to an extremely high standard. We would not hesitate to employ Wernick again.”

To see more welfare solutions from Wernick, click here.