The iconic Girlington Health Centre will open its doors to the public next week, the culmination of team working over 2 years  including the Practice and Bradford & Airedale PCT. This striking building is a welcome new feature to the local landscape of Girlington, a community located to the north west of Bradford city centre. It offers excellent accommodation for both the Carlton Medical Practice and the Girlington Pharmacy. The contemporary design provides clinical rooms on both ground and first floor with a double height central atrium including a roof light which allows the building to be bathed in natural light. The rainbow glass within the first floor balustrading throws changing coloured patterns onto the waiting area walls offering  a unique and calming environment, and a feature lighting display adds to the overall atmosphere of the building.

In total there are 7 consulting rooms, a treatment room and a large multi-purpose room suitable for a variety of clinics and group activities. In addition there is a first floor meeting room capable of subdividing with a folding wall offering flexible meeting, learning and training accommodation.

Carlton Medical Practice is a 3 GP practice serving over 6,000 patients within the inner city area of Bradford,  a community which they have served for over 60 years. The building is sited just 50m from the original surgery on a site which previously was for many years an unused school playground.

The building benefits from 23 car parking spaces to the rear, a much needed improvement for accessibility and safety for both patients and staff.  Additionally there are bicycle racks and a shower room for use by staff who may choose to cycle or walk to work.

The construction was completed by a local contractor Bermar Building to a BREEAM Excellent standard . The building has many energy saving aspects including 36 photovoltaic  panels, roof mounted and south facing helping to reduce the energy demands of the building and reduce utility costs. The internal environment is naturally ventilated aided by automatically opening roof lights within the core central space and large openings within the glazed front elevation. The feature wooden fins on the front of the building continue through the glazed frontage into the main waiting area at high level adding interest and sound attenuating qualities.

Girlington Primary school, which is just 100m from the building, has been involved throughout the project , providing initially “safety” posters for the site’s hoarding and latterly two large colourful mosaic style drawings depicting the local community which are on display within each of the two main public corridors.

Graham Symonds, manager of the Carlton Medical Practice said:

“This stunning development provides 21^st century facilities for the local community right on their doorstep.”

The Wellspring consortium, comprising Apollo Capital Projects Ltd, Community Solutions Investment Partners Ltd and Morgan Sindall Group plc, has delivered the inaugural project for Hub West Scotland (established in April 2012), with the opening of the Kirkintilloch Community Hub.

Opening its doors to the public on Monday 27 August, the Kirkintilloch Community Hub involved a substantial refurbishment creating a new modern library, customer service area and café. Offering the latest technology the new facilities will provide the local residents with access to all Council services under one roof.

Setting the standard going forward for the Council’s community hubs the project demonstrated the speed and flexibility with which Hub West Scotland can respond to the needs of its public sector partners, while at the same time working with its supply chain to deliver high quality, value for money buildings that have a positive impact on the needs of the local community and the economy of West Scotland. 

East Dunbartonshire Council Leader Rhondda Geekie said:

 “I’m absolutely delighted to open our very first Community Hub in Kirkintilloch.  This really is a landmark event for the Council and the East Dunbartonshire Leisure & Culture Trust.

The building has been completely transformed into a bright, airy, modern, spacious facility that is both welcoming and business like.  It has been kitted out with the latest technology to help customers do business with us.  Hub West Scotland has done a great job and I look forward to working with them in the future on our other hubs.”

The programme of investment for Hub West Scotland is anticipated to grow to £200m over the next ten years across a range of health, education, regeneration and other community infrastructure projects.

Rob James, Apollo’s Operations Director, enlisted the help of his youngest daughters Lucy and Nell to check out the work on the Beacon Centre for Health development on SA1 in Swansea. Lucy 12, and Nell 5, learnt many things including how buildings remain standing and what’s inside a lift shaft! They particularly enjoyed the large four storey atrium space which will house a living fig tree when complete. They now want to visit at different stages of the work to keep track on progress.

Rob James said: “It was great to show my children around and to give them a better understanding of buildings and what I do on a day to day basis. It is very useful to get a fresh unadulterated view of schemes to provide a reality check especially when you have worked in the detail for so long”.

The building is due to be completed in early 2013 and will accommodate the new Harbourside Health Centre, SA1 Medical Centre, Eastside Dental, ABM University Health Board and Swansea University College of Medicine along with the Coop Pharmacy.

 More information can be obtained from Rob James at rob.james@apollomedical.co.uk;

Apollo are delighted to report the legal close of their Cloughmore scheme in Cardiff. This 1,100sqm scheme will accommodate Dr Foy & Partners and a pharmacy and is going to be located on the Splott Clinic site. Welsh Government approval was granted in June 2011 and planning in October 2011. Work is due to commence in July 2012 and be complete by May 2013.

The site was bought from Cardiff University Health Board with the intention of demolishing the existing structure to make way for this state of the art primary care centre. The scheme has been designed to take up to 8,000 patients in the Splott and Tremorfa areas of Cardiff, however, specialist services will also reach out to patients registered with other practices.

The design by Boyes Rees Architects of Cardiff takes influences from the industrial past of the region and includes an intelligent natural stack ventilation system to enhance the internal environment for staff and patients.

Rob James, Apollo’s Operations Director said “this is the culmination of 4 years” work by the project team and we are really looking forward to delivering a new facility for the GPs, staff and patients in the region”.

Apollo are pleased to announce the legal close of their 2400sqm scheme in the Rumney district of Cardiff. The scheme, which will house the Rumney and Daintree GP Practices (who merged in September 2011), Cardiff University Health Board and a retail pharmacy, will be located on the Castlefields site in the heart of Rumney. The development was granted Welsh Government approval in June 2011 with planning approved in December 2011. Work is due to start late June / July 2012 with anticipated completion in July 2013.

The new building has been designed to accommodate 17,000 patients and provide enhanced services from Cardiff University Health Board including podiatry, audiology, mother and child clinic and family planning. It will also be the base for the District Nurse and Health Visitors in the east of the city.

Apollo first opened a Wales office in 2006 and since then has completed three schemes, has one under construction with another two commencing on site this year.

Apollo”s policy of local investment will again see a focus on local employment of contractors, sub-contractors and suppliers to ensure the investment is retained in the region to maximise the benefit to the ”Welsh pound”.

For further information please contact Rob James on rob.james@apollomedical.co.uk.

To develop relationships within the local community, together with our contractor Bermar Building, we approached the local Girlington Primary School, and Head Teacher, Mrs Sue Wood,  agreed  to provide some permanent artwork created by children of both infant and junior classes for display within the new building. The children will be working on ideas and creating the artwork during the summer term so that they can be displayed to coincide with the opening of the building this September.

The children were also invited to participate in a colouring competition based on creating a poster on building site safety. There were book token prizes for each of the year group winners.  The three winning “safety” posters have now been displayed on the site”s hoarding much to the pleasure of the children, parents and school staff.

Bermar will be introducing the children to “Ivor Goodsite”  shortly to talk with them about the dangers of building sites. They have already provided the nursery children with high viz vests and helmets which they have loved.

The Bradley’s Practice and Grosvenor Surgery both completed their relocation this week into their new 1110m2 Medical Centre located in the heart of Mold town centre. This follows the successful construction by local contractors RL Davies and the support and assistance throughout the development process from both practices and the Betsi Cadwaladr Health Board.

The building offers nine consulting rooms and three treatment rooms and the Health Board will be providing a podiatry service from a multi-function/treatment room. There is also a large meeting room with views over the surrounding countryside, and associated library which will be invaluable as the Bradley’s Practice is a training practice.  The Bradley’s Practice has a fully fitted dispensary within the main waiting area. The building has been designed with built in expansion rooms to enable services to be developed in the future. In addition the building can easily be extended to provide longer term expansion when the demand arises.

Externally the building has crisp elevations comprising a mixture of materials;  glazing, render, stone and zinc combining effectively to provide a modern yet sympathetic design to complement the adjacent Listed buildings. There are 35 car parking spaces together with a drop off layby adjacent to the entrance.

Internally the building benefits from an interior design based on the local setting of the town and the encapsulation of the hawthorn hedge within 3form glazing panels which form the entrance lobby to the building. The local primary school, (Ysgol Gymraeg Glanrafon), in conjunction with local artist Jan Gardner, has produced two spectacular montage pictures both on display in clinical corridors. The school children were also lucky enough to bury a Time Capsule for future generations to unearth. Further artwork has been provided by local photographer Llinos Lanini whose picture of the well known landmark called Moel Famau (a 550m hill surrounded by a country park to the south of Mold) is displayed across the wall of the first floor waiting area.

We are delighted to announce that on 16^th January the West Territory hub Programme Board announced that the WellSpring consortium were appointed as the preferred partner to deliver over £200m of public sector infrastructure projects for the West Scotland hub partners. WellSpring comprises of Apollo Capital Projects Ltd, Community Solutions Investment Partners Ltd and Morgan Sindall Group Plc.

The hub initiative is led by the Scottish Futures Trust on behalf of the Scottish Government. Five geographical territories across Scotland have been identified, each with an approximate population of one million. The hub programme brings planning partners together with a private sector development partner in order to ensure small and medium enterprises can be involved in the construction of high quality public sector buildings in their area.

The West hub will cover all communities throughout Glasgow, Inverclyde, East & West Dunbartonshire, East Renfrewshire and Renfrewshire.

Together with various public sector bodies WellSpring will form a ‘hubco’ in order to deliver projects across the West territory over the next ten years. The programme will create a supply chain of consultants, designers and contractors.

WellSpring are the fourth preferred partner to be appointed; the preferred partner for the last remaining territory in the South West of Scotland is yet to be announced. Apollo Capital Projects are also shortlisted on South West, in the WellSpring Miller Sweet consortium. A decision is expected in August 2012.

Congratulations to all those involved and thank you for all the time and effort given to ensure that WellSpring were successful!

The Swansea skyline was given a welcome addition early on 21st December when the first gang arrived to install Apollo”s first Tower Crane on the Beacon Centre for Health scheme in SA1. The restricted site, coupled with the 4 storey building with basement, means that the only viable way to get materials around the site is by this type of crane. The crane is 30m high with a 50m jib and will remain in place for 35 weeks.

Dawnus, Apollo”s construction partner, have arranged the crane by LTC which will be erected in one day followed by another day of commissioning and testing. The crane came on seven flat bed lorries and was erected like a giant Meccano set by just 5 men. The crane will be fully operational in January 2012 and start moving materials around the site to make life easier for the site staff.

The Beacon Centre for Health development is planned to be complete by February 2013 and will house Tawe Medical Centre, Port Tenant Practice, Eastside Dental, ABMU Health Board and the University College of Medicine.