The company building Portsmouth’s innovative Somerstown Hub – BAM Construction – has revealed that 87% of the orders for the recently completed Havant Academy were placed with local companies, as its work within the Hampshire area exceeds £300 million over the past twelve years. A few final landscaping touches are being made to the new Havant Academy which has already opened with state-of-the-art community facilities such as a hairdressing salon and beauty therapy facilities. Just two miles down the road, BAM is commencing work on Park Community School also in Havant, a much bigger build with some initial groundwork challenges. Elsewhere in Portsmouth, BAM has just installed 18 38-tonne concrete beams across the dual carriageway to form the base of the iconic Hub structure. Since finishing a boathouse for Portsmouth Naval Base in August 2001, the company has worked on 33 projects in the county. It has formed a strong partnership with Hampshire County Council, for whom it built Elizabeth II Court, its new Winchester headquarters. It has worked with the Council on several projects under the IESE Framework (Improvement and Efficiency South East) including some outside the county such as Cressex Community School in Buckinghamshire. The company’s other clients have included Sun Microsystems, Tesco, Marks & Spencer and Asda; and in the public sector, Southampton University, Hampshire County Council and Portsmouth City Councils, various of the NHS Trusts. It also worked for English Heritage on Osbourne House on the Isle of Wight. Director for BAM in the South East, Stuart Robinson said, ‘We’re very proud of the work we’ve done here in recent years. We have worked in every sector: education, health, commercial, retail and leisure. Our approach is to try and use local suppliers and local materials and give something back to the Hampshire economy and community as a result of working here. We’ve got a strong tradition of community involvement.
‘Of great significance recently has been our work with Hampshire County Council under the IESE framework. This has won awards for sustainability and design and it’s a sign of what the public and private sectors can achieve working together successfully.’ Park Community School completes in 2015 and Somerstown Hub completes next year.
