Projects

Retford Enterprise Centre is a two storey steel frame building intended to provide office space for small businesses.

The building has a BREEAM rating of Excellent and, in order to achieve this, we had to tackle sustainability from many angles.

The development has a 15kW wind turbine to generate electricity for the building and to provide an income in the form of the Feed-In-Tariff. It also incorporates rainwater harvesting; with collected rainwater being used to irrigate the landscape and flush the toilets within the building. Air source heat pumps provide heating and cooling for the building; all of these elements working together will help lower the final running costs for the end user.

Aside from the energy usage of the building; at design stage the team appointed an ecologist to help appraise the ecological value of the land and give guidance on how to protect and enhance the ecology throughout the build programme. As a result two large swales have been incorporated into the design to provide a habitat for wildlife and to act as flood protection should it ever be needed.

“May I take this opportunity to express my sincere thanks for the completion of this excellent building. This has easily been the most pleasurable project I have worked on. Not only is the building extremely classy, any defects were difficult to find and those which there were, were rectified without fuss and with a smile. Throughout the whole operation any problems were addressed openly and proactively. Solutions were often found before we realised there was even a problem. I think the overall feeling I got from you and all your staff, and the sub-contractors, was that everyone actually cared about the jobs they were doing.”

Robert Wilkinson, Economic Development Manager, BDC