Shropshire building & joinery contractor completes school project
A £400,000 building project which has joined two Shropshire schools together has been successfully completed.
J R Slee Building & Joinery Contractors has just finished construction work on the scheme merging William Reynolds junior and infants schools in Woodside, Telford.
“This was a challenging and complicated contract as we could not disrupt the daily life of the pupils and teachers so a lot of the work had to be carried out in school holidays as well as in the evenings and at weekends,” commented Rodney Slee, managing director of J R Slee, based in Condover, near Shrewsbury.
“We are grateful to Telford and Wrekin Council for the opportunity to tender for and carry out the project. It is our policy to try and resource labour and materials locally where ever possible and this scheme provided work for our employees, including several from Telford. We also want to thank Woodside residents for their co-operation and understanding during the work.”
The project meant building a new office and reception area and corridor linking the two schools together, as well as providing a new staff room and fully fitted kitchen.
“We managed to complete the work on time and to budget and are now starting work on a further phase which will refurbish other areas of the building, including the school hall,” Rodney added.
Irene Baxter, headmistress of the new William Reynolds Primary School, which caters for 360 children, said that she was delighted with the quality of the work and the way that it had been carried out to fit in with school life.
Telford and Wrekin Council’s building surveyor Andy Baker commented that this was part of an on-going programme to upgrade Borough primary schools.
“The council always tries to use Shropshire firms that employ local people and who have apprentices on their books, such as JR Slee. The firm is a very professional company to work with and in all of the projects I have been involved in with them clients have been very complimentary about their flexible approach to working.
“The pressure was on to finish this work as we had six weeks to complete a probable eight-to-ten week project. JR Slee accepted the tight time scale and through excellent project management on site they achieved this for us,” he said.
