The project
In December 2004, Center Parcs announced that it had identified a location for a fifth UK site, at Warren Wood near Flitwick, Bedfordshire. Center Parcs Woburn Forest was a £250 million development, one of the largest leisure projects in the UK.
The design
Commissioned by the main contractor, ISG plc to produce large volumes of high-quality structures within an exacting build programme. The heavily wooded site made access difficult for lorries and cranes, so closed timber frame wall panels were designed to be small and light enough to be handled by four men. The commercial team planned an accurate delivery schedule enabling ISG to synchronise with other site suppliers. Initially 625 lodges were built, with 6 spa suites, complete with a 17,000m2 lake at the centre. We built a prototype lodge at its Bedfordshire-based factory to trial the speed and efficiency and to ensure quality. During the build our on-site contracts management team of 6 worked with ISG to adapted the build sequence around the snow and ice to deliver the last plot by December 2013.
Published February 2015
The high degree of skill and expertise consistently demonstrated by the Kingspan team provided us with a great deal of confidence in the delivery of an incredibly challenging project, both in terms of scope and scale. Kingspan’s solution driven approach was an important factor in our successful relationship, and the company’s ability to plan ahead and offer us a transparent working methodology, with clearly defined processess, provided enhanced certainty in programme delivery. This made project management much more straight forward and Kingspan actively contributed to the smooth running of the programme.
Paul Gransby, Construction Director, ISG
Center Parcs by numbers
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4,000 Tonnes sequestered CO2 in the lodges
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625 Timber frame lodges
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159 Sauna units
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20,000 Roof trusses
