Somerford Grove Adventure Playground

The project provided a multi use community centre and adventure playground for the Northumberland Park Estate in Tottenham. Haringey Play Association (HARPA) is a registered charity and wanted to involve trainees from the local community in various fit out packages. We acted as principal contractor and accommodated this unique request.

Phase 1 of the work including demolition, groundwork and superstructure by HA Marks from April – August 04. While Phase 2 is concern with HA Marks site set up, mechanical and electrical services, plastering and external works from Sep 04 – March 05.

This was unusual and complicated project with several key goals. It combined:

• Grant funded work with deadlines
• Recruitment and organization of a training scheme
• Careful cost control to ensure that time, cost and quality targets were met.

Traditional contractors are very wary of involvement with this type of project, but HA Marks took it all in their stride and were instrumental in ensuring a successful completion.
The issues that we had to overcome was devised a form of procurement that combined the use of green technologies with a training scheme designed to give site experience to women wanting to join the construction industry.

We successfully overcome this issues by splitting the project into two phases;

Phase 1: HA Marks constructs wind & watertight shell under a traditional contract.
Phase 2: ‘Self build’ fitting out project for trainees. Client acts as main contractor and hires a project manager. HA Marks carries out several work packages to enable the project to complete on time.