Barton Gardens, Sherborne, North West Dorset

This site is the first for the construction of a terrace of three modular 3 bed houses, designed and fabricated by Rollalong Ltd, based in Dorset.

Rollalong Ltd are partnered with Magna Housing, to provide homes at infill sites in the local region.

The first phase of 5 sites are existing garage block plots, no longer deemed viable and ideal brownfield sites. These vary in size between 6 and 20 units.

Rollalong have developed the various house and flat types to be factory certified approved by NHBC.

The site infrastructure, drainage and external works, as well as the installation of the modular units in place, are by Fisher and Dean Contractors, based in Nailsea. gcp are providing support to Fisher and Dean, with site layout design coordination, external works, site based Building Control and planning conditions discharge.

End of year blog 2020

A year like no other is coming to an end and I just wanted to say that, despite the numerous challenges presented to us, the whole team has responded magnificently demonstrating a deep-routed culture of mutual support and understanding. My thanks and appreciation go to you all. I have known for ages that it was all about the people and so I want to mention some of the ways that we have progressed as an organisation to put us in such a strong position looking forward to 2021 and the part that the individuals have played in that.

Everyone has developed a ‘teams’ persona whether it’s during a virtual rendezvous with genial GP ‘doctor’ Martin Spear, ‘cat juggling’ Esther Brown, ‘squeezed under the stairs’ whispering Michael Hanson or ‘wild man of the woods’ Jonathan Platt. Sometimes they all appear at once on screen like a mad version of University Challenge.

I thought some like borrowing the cool neutral background of a beautifully tasteful modern kitchen until I eventually realised that in Olia Kyritsi’s case it was actually her real kitchen.  Some like Tom Mellor, Tom Hubbard and Matt Andrews like fading out the domestic child strewn chaos in which they obviously live while Owen Faunt either has many rooms in his house or a different selection of bold wallpapers in each. Sarah Markroum looks as though she is just about to pick up an instrument and sing us a song and Matt Bonney has been sitting next to his match pot decorated wall for most of the year.

Natalie Lock likes to share her domestic bliss with us occasionally interrupted by child or husband or both and recently we have been able to share the homes of Maria Steward, who’s husband lives, we now know, behind a door curiously located half way up the wall in her kitchen, or Siobhan Tarr who has brought the garden inside her house with her spectacularly green fingers.  James Pilling resides in his person shed in the middle of a building site with bike poised for an early morning spin whilst Jon Briscoe organises our every waking hour with benevolent decisiveness and our recently distanced genial voice of reason and wisdom Colin Powell looks over us and after us. 

What a dream teams team!

This year really has been full of achievement. Financially we have, more or less, broken even which has been no mean feat on its own.  During a year when we have completed a refurbishment of the office, had to work in bubbles, incurred the considerable cost of converting the business into an Employee Owned Trust and set everyone up with the IT infrastructure to work fairly seamlessly from home or from Corum 2, this performance has been even more remarkable.

The year stared with James Pilling achieving a Part 1 Architectural qualification by distance learning with Oxford Brookes and ended with Esther Brown becoming a fully qualified Architect.  In the middle Sarah Makroum passed her first year of Part 2, again at Oxford Brookes and Own Faunt his first year apprentice Part 1 at South Bank University, both with flying colours.  Matt Bonney and Olia Kyrirtsi became qualified Passivhaus designers and Tom Hubbard became a certified Architectural Technologist.  Congratulations to you all.

Shout outs go to Michael Hanson for his tireless responses to your never-ending technical queries and Michael again with Tom Mellor for masterminding the IT development and eventual delivery of a VOIP telephone system.  Don’t ring us ( and expect to get transferred ) we’ll ring you back!  Lastly a big mention for Esther Brown, Natalie Lock, Matt Bonney and James Pilling for boosting our social media presence to the status of influencers – who would have believed it!

And then there was the actual work!

Happy Christmas to you and yours and I look forward to eventually meeting up with you all in 2021.

Jeremy Pilling

2020 Favourites: Avonmouth Community Centre

“This has been a really rewarding project to be involved with. gcp have always been enthusiastic about supporting and enabling community organisations to improve their facilities and Avonmouth Community Centre has given us the opportunity to work at length on a project which will dramatically enhance their capability to offer services to the community. The existing Victorian school buildings have been repurposed and reordered as part of a masterplan to provide dedicated meeting spaces, a teaching kitchen, function area and library space. Further phases would look to improve the fabric and include renewable energy provision to reduce ongoing expenditure.”

— Michael Hanson, gcp

We asked everyone in the office to name their favourite project of 2020. Michael has chosen this small scheme for Avonmouth Community Centre Association looking to reconfigure and refurbish the existing space.

2020 Favourites: Brentry, Bristol

“A very interesting project working alongside a flexible main contractor, able to adapt to LiveWest requirements as they developed.

The resultant building achieved an attractive domestic scale frontage to the residential streetscape and provided the residents with an accessible building with high levels of safety built in”

— Martin Spear, gcp

We asked everyone in the office to name their favourite project of 2020. Martin has chosen a lovely scheme in Brentry for LiveWest and Fisher & Dean. This scheme is for 8 flats for residents requiring additional support.