SANTANDER Unity Place: August – September developments

We are now in week 110 of our programme and clearly entering the home stretch towards project completion in early 2023.  As it can be seen, the remaining cranes have been removed from site, the first hoist has been struck and the façade infilled at that location. The last hoist is due to be removed by the end of August. Our Façade is nearing completion, just in time for the approaching Autumn weather.  Internally we are still very much focused on completing the M&E installation that comprises the bulk of work currently underway on site.

John Sisk & Son is a family-owned business which has been operating since 1859. Our company has had five generations of the Sisk family controlling the business over the past 163 years. We are an international construction company with operations throughout Europe, we specialise in many forms of building; from large infrastructure projects to complex buildings across the office/retail/ hotel/residential/rail/civils and industrial sectors.

1. Work planned for the next 8 weeks

The next 8 weeks will be focused on the continuation of works already started, the volume of our building is so large that one of our greatest challenges is getting through the sheer quantity of installation to be completed. To this end, we will push on with façade / drylining / balustrading / raised access flooring / M&E to the office floors and the roof and basement plantrooms. Elsewhere we have just completed the installation of the last of our 17 Lifts on site, this is a key achievement given the complexity of work involved and is great to see. Now that our façade is nearly complete we will start to apply waterproofing to the top of our basement ‘box’ to enable the external finishes to commence.

2. Health and Safety

Construction sites are hazardous places, although we have many controls established, it is vital that all members of the public respect the hoardings erected to the perimeter of the site to keep everyone safe. As an additional measure of control, we shall have on site security guards / monitored CCTV cameras & Alarmed site cabins. Any concerns should be reported to the emergency contact below.

3. Community Liaison

Throughout the year we have continued our engagement with the Sir Herbert Leon Academy.  Providing a day per week training to a construction student class.  Excitingly, four of these students have now signed up to become Sisk Employees in joining our Apprentice Scheme. We always intend to leave a lasting legacy through our works in any area, but the provision of careers to four young people is certainly one of our greatest achievements on Unity Place. Here, we see one of our Senior Site Managers Shane O’Hara taking the students through the ropes in the refurbishment of their Student Space where we are helping them install a new Kitchen and Meeting area, all whilst picking up valuable new skills. We have been very pleased to learn that SHLA have decided to name the refurbished space the ‘Steve Bowcott Building’ in honour of our former CEO who was pivotal in inspiring our valued link with the Academy. We have just received a Score of 45/50 in our last Considerate Contractors audit in March this being made up of a score of 15/15 in all the key categories.