Sewell completes library refurbishment

Sewell Construction has successfully completed a major refurbishment of the Sheila Silver Library at Leeds Beckett University.

 
Supporting the university’s ongoing upgrade and maintenance programme, the completed space was handed over ready for the start of term after 14 weeks on the city centre campus. Sewell competitively tendered for the contract, which involved removing the old library and consulting rooms, turning it into an open plan space, building a new library and study rooms, as well as IT hubs and suites.

 

Site Manager Carl Hurdus explained how the team went the extra mile to ensure the library could operate as normal while work was carried out on site and education was not affected.

 

Carl said:
“The university still required access to collect and return books. But as we got into it, it became more apparent that if you weren’t aware of construction sites, it became too much of a risk to let staff move around the building. A couple of the site operatives learnt the book coding system and started a book collection service each morning, giving the books to the staff so they could pass
them on to the students. The team worked to a tight deadline and completed out-of-hours work to keep noise and disruption to a minimum.”

 

Nicholas Foster, Estates Project Manager at Leeds Beckett University said:

 

“Sewell were a new contractor to the university and quickly bought into the partnering ethos adopted by the project team. The level of communication issued was exactly what we expect as a client working within a live environment. Further to this, Carl was very responsive to requests made by the university and worked well with the library staff. The final product produced by the Sewell team has set a new high standard and we would be delighted to work with Sewell on future projects.”