STEPNELL Building and Civil Engineering

The Minster College

This new BSF Pathfinder secondary school, constructed in a restricted site between the existing occupied college and the sports areas, was awarded to Stepnell late 2008.  The Clients specification and requirements called for an advanced learning environment with community facilities so that the new Sports College would be a beacon or learning and living for the town of Leominster and North Herefordshire.

By placing the Learning Resource Centre and Sixth Form Area in the centre of the new school and elevated, learning is promoted as the principal driver for the college and the architecture will reinforce the aspiration of the students to stay on into the Sixth Form.

Construction challenges include programme constraints, with timings set around disruptive and noisy activities occurring in the term breaks, and the very congested site with the new building fitting around the existing occupied building like a jigsaw puzzle.  Stepnell will achieve a BREEM “very good” rating for the new school which has been designed with very low energy consumption at the forefront of all decisions.  However, Stepnell also hope to create one of the best learning environments in the country including easily controllable ventilation, heat recovery and thermal mass, day lighing and glare protection.  These measures will go to improve the attainment of the students above where they would have been in the old classrooms with the same teachers.

The project remains on programme with careful planning and interface with the school to ensure safety and the minimisation of disruption to the education of the students.  Stepnell are also very aware of our other neighbours, with a crèche and leisure centre sharing the site and access.

This project is also the home of The Minster College Training Initiative.

While working on educational projects for the Herefordshire Council, Stepnell has developed a consistent and highly effective team, which is delivering a major work experience programme, upskilling employees across the team and achieving enhanced performance and profitability through the same team being engaged on successive projects. This has led to Stepnell winning the WMCCE Integration and Collaborative Working Award 2010 - find out more here.

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