Client: Kier Construction North & Scotland
Location: Chester
Project: MEP Contract for Cheshire Archives
Project Managers: Chris Tolley and Paul Cooper
Cheshire Archives and Local Studies is a shared service of Cheshire West and Chester Council and Cheshire East Council. They look after the county’s unique and irreplaceable written and pictorial history. The project will rehouse the archives across two new state-of-the-art history centres with this one in Chester and a second site in Crewe.
The archives have been preserved in Cheshire for 70 years in their current location and are of both local and national importance, recording the history of the county over the last 900 years.
With rare artefacts and irreplaceable objects, control of light, heat and humidity is vital. As a team we have expertise in heat and humidity control for archives and our brief will be to create a totally benign environment for them to be protected and preserved. The fire systems also have to be well planned to avoid potential water damage to priceless artefacts in the event of an emergency.
Kimpton are delivering the £2m MEP Contract for the delivery of the new Chester History Centre. It is to be built at the site of the former Enterprise Centre, Lightfoot Street, Chester. It will be delivered by the Kimpton Major Projects team, lead by Chris Tolley and Paul Cooper. We will be working with Kier Construction North & Scotland.
The project is being part funded by the National Lottery Heritage Fund, who are contributing £4.45m towards the project. This funding will also support a programme of activities across the county until March 2027.
The design for the new centre, by local Architects Ellis Williams who we also worked with on the Wrexham sheltered housing scheme. Unusually the structure is being built to BREEAM Excellent standard. This will ensure net zero from day one and very stringent standards throughout.
Working to BREEAM standards means sustainable energy measures throughout and it will include a large Solar PV array on the roof to provide power, high spec windows, with designed overhangs to provide shading where needed and draw warmth and light from the low winter sun, as well as superb insulation. It will also ensure very low ongoing running costs, even for a large open building such as this. The additional benefit of this is lower waste emissions and lower CO2 emissions into the future.
The MEP contract covers all aspects of the electrics throughout and the heating and cooling via a VRF Air Conditioning system. We will also be delivering all of the above ground drainage throughout. Ventilation is critical in BREEAM buildings to ensure a turnover of air without creating draughts. In addition there is domestic plumbing and the water supply for kitchen and bathrooms for staff and customers within the centre.
The project will be handled by Chris Tolley and Paul Cooper who have worked on numerous large projects over their years with Kimpton.
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