The Education and Skills Funding Agency (ESFA) open a CIF funding bidding round every year under which qualifying academies, multi-academy trusts and sixth form colleges can apply for capital funding. ESFA announced recently that they will be providing an additional £182m for Condition Improvement Funding 2020 to 2021 projects. This will fund a further 580 projects at 548 academies, sixth-form … Read More
How to choose a Building Surveyor
We have written quite a lot about which type of Building Survey is best for your potential new home, such as What’s in a Building Survey? or What is a mortgage survey? However, we haven’t focussed on how you choose the right Building Surveyor to carry out your survey. Often we see customers use survey price as their main method … Read More
Appointing a Professional Quinquennial Inspector
The appointment of a Quinquennial Inspector is always an individual, not a firm. It is important that a Quinquennial Inspector’s training, accreditation and experience in building conservation is commensurate with the complexity and significance of the church building or buildings in question. The Quinquennial Report itself is one of the key documents which assists in the care and repair of … Read More
Failure of RAAC Roof Planks
Reinforced Autoclaved Aerated Concrete roof planks (RAAC), were widely used in flat roof construction between the 1960’s to 1980’s. Unfortunately, the methods employed to construct these planks resulted in a relatively weak structure. One with a low capacity for developing a bond with embedded reinforcement. Recent roof failures have identified rusting of this embedded reinforcement and cracking of the planks. … Read More
New SECAmb Multi-Use Centre
We are delighted to be acting as Lead Consultant on SECAmb’s new multi-use centre near Gillingham, Kent. This will be the 8th Make Ready Centre/Emergency Operations Centre (EOC) we have delivered for SECAmb & with the other functions incorporated into the building, it represents the largest such facility in England. The proposed building will total approximately 4050msq. Out of that … Read More
Competitive building costs
Accurate & competitive CIF Bid costings are essential if an academy, sixth-form college or eligible school is going to be successful in securing, for example, CIF funding. Even if the CIF bid is ultimately unsuccessful, the process of preparing an accurate tender pack & receiving competitive building costs can often help in budgeting for the works in the future. We … Read More
Public Consultation
As with all our building projects, consultation with local residents, end users and key stakeholders so they can provide their views and feedback on a proposal, is always a central part in refining the final project. We’ve carried out numerous events, whether to gather feedback from local residents on a school extension or end users’ thoughts on a multi-million pound … Read More
Office strategy after lockdown
Are you considering your office strategy in light of the COVID-19 pandemic? With more staff blending working from home with reduced office commuting, perhaps you need to make better use of smaller, localised office spaces? Your teams may never all be in the office together. Instead they may rotate in smaller groups, so these new spaces will not need to … Read More
Schedule of Condition
A Schedule of Condition (or SoC) is a factual record of the condition of a property. As part of our Professional Services, Chawton Hill prepare Schedules of Condition for both residential and commercial buildings. A well-written Schedule of Condition is a detailed record of the condition of the property on a particular date. This provides a benchmark to assess any … Read More
Building Surveys during the coronavirus (COVID-19) outbreak
All our Building Surveys are carried out under our Terms of Engagement and the latest RICS Professional statement. During the coronavirus (COVID-19) outbreak, we have temporarily amended these terms. This is so our surveyors and clients remain safe at all times during Building Surveys. On our Quick RICS Building Survey Quote form and our RICS Building Survey Booking Form, we … Read More
How to write successful CIF Bids
We have been writing successful funding bids in various forms for nearly 20 years. In our experience securing CIF bids comes down to following the famous five P’s. Proper Preparation Prevents Poor Performance and avoiding the sixth P of Procrastination! The deadline for each academic year tends to follow a similar pattern. Final bids are required on the Education and … Read More
New Primary Medical Centres
We have a strong track record in Primary Medical Centres, having acted as Employers Agent, Quantity Surveyor & Principal Designer on over 15 in recent years. The governments 2019 manifesto re-stated its target of building 300,000 homes a year by the mid-2020s. Importantly it also pledged to make sure these homes were ‘built in a way that makes sense for … Read More
Modular School Building
During last summer we completed a modular school building project at Meadow Primary School in Epsom, Surrey. A few months earlier we discussed the concept of off-site construction and the benefits associated with modular buildings many of which were evident in this Meadow Primary project. For example, off-site buildings can be made wind and weather-tight more rapidly because they have … Read More
Christmas 2019
*This year we close for the Christmas holidays on 24th December & we will be back on 2nd January. We would like to wish everyone a very Merry Christmas & a Happy New Year! As is traditional at this time of year we thought we’d look back on what’s been another exciting 12 months for Chawton Hill and look forward … Read More
Ambulance Make Ready Centre Programme for North West
Chawton Hill has been leading the development of the Ambulance Make Ready Centre programme for over 9 years. We are delighted to have been appointed by North West Ambulance Service Trust to carry out a number of site feasibility studies as the first step in developing their Ambulance Make Ready Centre (MRC) programme. North West Ambulance Service (NWAS) cover an … Read More