Colbalt Unit Appeal Fund

The project

The Cobalt Unit Appeal Fund, a registered charity, was established in 1964. Its work, which is reliant on voluntary donations, supplements and enhances National Health Service facilities for the prevention, detection and treatment of malignant disease in Gloucestershire, Herefordshire and Worcestershire.

The new Diagnostic Imaging Centre at Cheltenham enables the Cobalt Appeal Fund to expand the vital service it provides.

Beard won the building contract after taking part in a competitive tendering process.

The two-storey building provides 930 square metres of accommodation, including three scanning rooms, consultation rooms, reception and waiting areas, and ancillary facilities for staff and patients.

The building is of a traditional block cavity construction. The rendered finish incorporates bands and window arches made from artificial stone. The roof is constructed from a combination of slate, asphalt, single ply membrane and lead. The basement area, which houses the plant room and provides storage space, is formed from contiguous piles linked by ring beams.

The floors at ground level are constructed from power floated concrete, while the second-storey floors are made from pre-cast hollow concrete planks supported by masonry and steel. The stairs are constructed from pre-cast concrete.

Beard installed the internal walls, suspended ceilings, doors and double-glazed aluminium windows, and was also responsible for the substantial mechanical and electrical installation work, which included a heavy-duty ventilation system to counteract the heat generated by the unit's three diagnostic scanners.

Challenges and solutions

• One of the two Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) scanners is a new model, and is the first of its kind in Europe. The exact technical specification was not available at the procurement stage, so Beard had to work closely with the architects to implement the design changes needed to accommodate the scanner once its specification became available.
  
• Installing the scanners required extensive co-ordination of the mechanical and electrical works.
  
• The new building's footprint occupied a large proportion of the total site.  It was therefore imperative that we worked efficiently and methodically, especially as there was nowhere to park site traffic.
  
• Beard had to manage the site so that building work did not             inconvenience or endanger patients and staff entering and leaving the adjacent clinic.
  
• Once installed, the MRI scanners had to be protected from damage.  Ferrous metals found in tools, keys and even credit cards could not be taken into the scanning room due to the strength of the magnetic field.