First apprentice joins construction team

The construction team has welcomed its first apprentice on board. Matthew Wong, aged 22, started a Site Management Apprenticeship at the site on Monday, November 9.

 

He will be working with Kier Construction Northern, who is developing the site for GMFRS, for the next 12 months. 

Matthew, who lives in Middleton, said: “I went to university in Huddersfield to study Business and Entrepreneurship but didn’t like it so I left and since then had just been working on various sites doing fire protection.

“What I was doing at uni was really office based and the site work was obviously manual but I wanted to do something that included a bit of both and included different things

“I saw the Bury training site apprenticeship on a job site online and went for it – and I am really enjoying it so far. I get to do a bit of everything and it’s different to anything I’ve done before – so it’s perfect.”

Matthew’s apprenticeship – the first in a number of opportunities for young people that will be available as part of the project – is being run by the Greater Manchester Chamber of Commerce Group Training Association (GTA) in partnership with Kier and GMFRS.

A number of other apprenticeships will be created as part of the project in trades such as bricklaying, plastering and joinery.

Matthew continued: “I’ve seen the 3D fly-through of what the site will look like and I think it’s going to be amazing. I’ve been on a lot of building sites up and down the country since I was 17 and this is like nothing I’ve ever seen before.

“The site will have so many different scenarios for training and for the community to see what the fire service does and learn about safety. I think it’s brilliant – I’m really proud to be involved and I can’t wait to see what it’s like when it’s finished.”

Chairman of Greater Manchester Fire and Rescue Authority, Councillor David Acton, said: “I’d like to welcome Matthew on board and wish him the best of luck in his apprenticeship journey with Kier in conjunction with GMFRS and the GTA.

“I think it’s fantastic that so many young people from Bury and surrounding areas will have the chance to work on such an exciting project, learn vital skills and gain lots of fantastic experience.”

Construction update - AIR Unit photos

These photos from our AIR Unit show how work is progressing at the new Bury training and community site. The images were taken on Friday, October 30.

As you can see from the images the excavation work is not far off being complete on the whole site. Excavation of the original canal has taken place and this is where the ship simulator will go – allowing firefighters to train for ship-related incidents (see photo below).   

Work is taking place on the steel structure of the community centre, which is being transformed from a vacant warehouse into an interactive community facility. The steel frame has been completely stripped back and painted – you can see the structure in the centre of the first image.

The foundation works have also been laid for the high-rise building on Fire Street – this is the area just above the community centre in the image. This is where firefighters will be able to train for real fire incidents (photo below).

Below you can see a map of the site, which explains the different areas (click on the image to enlarge it.)

 

Below are some more photos of some of the work in progress.

 

Piling work in progress

 

 Demolition of the culvert 

  

 

    The canal has been excavated     

 

                      

    Foundations for the high-rise building  

Timelapse of progress so far...

This timelapse is hot off the press and shows the work to date. We'll update this as time progresses.

Operational training centre update

Welcome to the first blog about the construction of our new operational training site and community safety centre in Bury. My name is Sean Booth and I am leading on the project. I will be blogging about the operational training part of the development. If you click here you can fly through and see what the finished site will look like.



We intend building a site where we can train all of our firefighters and officers to deal with all of the different types of incidents they may encounter including fires in houses, commercial and industrial buildings and in vehicles or on roadways, road traffic collisions, Metrolink, rail and aircraft incidents, collapsed buildings, water rescues, rescues from height and many other scenarios.


We bought the site in 2013 and have spent a year or so getting our plans together and gaining planning approval.

We started work in May 2015 and our first job is to clean-up the site – we expect this will take another 10 weeks before we’re ready for the construction to start.

As we are cleaning up the site we are finding lots of voids, pipes and water courses underground and we are making sure they are all removed, filled in, renovated or avoided and left in situ as required.

The next step will be to strip off the cladding on the existing large warehouse buildings ready for them to be renovated.

They will have new cladding, which will make them look much smarter than they do now and will also ensure they last 25 years before they need any replacement and they will also provide far better sound and heat insulation.