Newbury Temporary Custody Suite

The requirement for a temporary custody suite at Newbury presented a range of challenges. The only place to put it was in a small car park behind  the Magistrates court - whose needs would also have to be served. Its installation could not affect operational requirements and it had to be up to the considerable task involved. Custodial Review spoke to Andy King, the Business Development Manager of Wernick Buildings Ltd.

Thames Valley Police speak very highly of the job Wernick have completed installing a temporary custody suite in Newbury. Could I ask how you were selected for the contract?
Andy King (AK) With our PCflex building system, we could offer a compliant modular custody suite specifically designed to meet Thames Valley Police’s needs for a 12 month hire. And being fully factory manufactured offsite it could also be quickly installed with the minimum of disruption into a very tight site at the back of Newbury magistrates court and then quickly removed once no longer required.

You said ‘Fairly’, are the cells at Newbury of a standard configuration?
(AK) No, to fit the site we needed to make the modules for the Newbury site slightly shorter by reducing the depth of the service ducts, and the chute between the cell door and the body of the cell. So that instead of being 3.6 metres from the cell door to the back wall it is only 3.2 metres, with the body of the cell remaining the same size.

I’m still amazed how you managed to position a module into such a tight spot. I’ve been looking at the actual site and photographs before installation and it is set between the back of the magistrates’ court and the canal with only a matter of inches to spare. What did you have to do on the site to prepare it for the modules?
(AK) The site was a tarmac faced car park, triangular in shape. We installed 36 temporary foundation piers directly onto the car park deck. Each module needs eight foundation piers, (where the modules join they share a foundation pier). Next a foul drainage system was installed to collect waste from the eight individual toilets and fed into an existing inspection chamber within the courts’ foul drainage system. This preparation work took two days to complete.

What about the other essential services, electricity and hot and cold water, how was that organised?
(AK) The electricity supply came from the Magistrates’ Court via an armoured cable. The mains water also came from the court and both supplies were eventually connected into the custody suite’s storeroom and thence throughout the modules when they arrived two days later. It was a Saturday when the six modules arrived on low loaders and were then lifted in turn by crane over the two storey court building and positioned over the piers at waist height. Then, with a man at each corner for fine adjustment, they were slowly lowered onto pre-determined location marks on the piers. We started craning-in at 8am and finished with the crane by 2.30 pm.

What was the next stage?
(AK) The six modules were fully finished internally, including the cells, and all their fittings, the kitchen complete, basins and wall units fixed in, the charge desk was already finished with all its fittings. The next job was to make good the module joins, replace the suspended ceiling in the corridor, connect the lights and, vinyl the corridor floor. Then, every room was completely finished, so we locked the door.

The six modules must have then needed joining together and made weatherproof, how did you do that?   
(AK) The roof and outer walls are made of steel insulated panels. The joins between these panels are sealed, insulated and capped on-site as soon as they are craned in. By the end of that Saturday afternoon the building was installed and fully weatherproofed. Electricity and water supplies are connected from module to module in a similar way to that used to couple train carriages.
The air conditioning is easily connected with the internal units located in the corridor ceiling of every other module. The ductwork  is then simply connected to the A/C unit and it is ready to go. 

When your team finished work on that Saturday how long before the police officers and the staff could move in to start work?
(AK) The unit was ready by Wednesday lunchtime to hand over to Thames Valley Police to be use as a custody suite. Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday mornings were used to couple-up and check all the services incoming and outgoing and the make sure all the facilities, such as alarm systems, were in order. The police installed their own equipment during that time and we were operationally ready Wednesday pm.

So that was the custody suite, built and operational in less than a week. Can we talk now about energy efficiency. Is that built-into the modules during the design stage?
(AK) Yes, effectively each module is a highly insulated box, the insulation U values for the wall, floor and the roof are better than that required by the building regulation requirements. Officers will do their work in a very highly insulated airtight box with the air conditioning and heat recovery systems managing the temperature and quality of the air within the building. The units are very energy efficient. 

After looking around the building it is clear that it is of high specification, perhaps not the initial pre-conception that people may have of a temporary building?
(AK) The building is designed to be permanent and uses the same materials and fittings that would be used in a traditionally built custody suite. We have just created and patented a modular system that allows us to manufacture, install and remove it extremely quickly. Due to the nature of use of the building you cannot compromise on specification, it must be safe and secure even if it there for one day, one year or 100 years. That is why we try and use the best fittings and equipment that are available on the market within our buildings, for example our cell doors with their new three position hatches and vertical observation viewers. And if we can’t find fittings that we feel are suitable then we design our own, for example the windows used at Newbury, are a high level two part window that as well as being secure have a U value of 1.8 and are therefore very energy efficient.

For argument sake, suppose the police wanted the custody suite you supplied to be a permanent fixture, how long would it last?
(AK) It will last as long as the police want it to last because it is made with the same material, inside or out as any other commercial building built throughout the UK. Properly maintained it will last until operational factors demand a change.

If that is the case why are the police bothering to build another suite?
(AK) It was a matter of timing. We hadn’t met with the Thames Valley Police when the decisions were made to build the new suite at Newbury. It was after they had sanctioned the project that they called on us to supply a hire building to cover the interval between demolition and re-building. I would hope that, should such a situation re-occur, they would consider our solution for a permanent build.

What about the feasibility of a mix, using a number of your modular units on a concrete base with the remainder of the facility a brick-built structure around it?
(AK) We could have matched the exact design of the new custody suite at Newbury using a full range of modular units and then just bricked it up so, internally or externally, nobody would notice any difference. That would have taken about six months to complete, compared with the 12 months the traditional building is currently taking.

If the Prison Service decided to expand the capacity of a prison could these cell units be used?
(AK) Our PCflex system could be used as cells within the wing of a prison, however they were not designed as prison units and so we would need to change the size and shape of the cells, which is not a problem. We specifically designed our product to suit the police custody market and patented the principle of our secure modular box design, but we could easily change it to be used as prison cell modules as well as police cell modules.

You are probably ahead of me, but in the present overcrowded prison situation could off-the-shelf two-storey modules in various combinations be a construction option, or is that stretching credibility?
(AK) Yes, for a temporary solution, temporary police cells and temporary custody suites have been used to house prisoners during busy times and a hire building could be one solution, however, for a permanent solution the design of a 60 cell prison house block is much different than that of a custody suite, yet this is something that we are aware of and could easily use our modular system to provide. We wanted to enter the police custody market with a fresh mind, design something that is not already out there, give the client what they want, be hire compliant, fully functioning with short delivery times which we know we have achieved. Our business at the moment is to inform individual forces that they can hire, or purchase, custodial facilities, be it an extension or complete suite. We are trying to give them an alternative to what has been traditional building frustrations; that is a lot of planning followed by long leadtimes and disruption on-site to daily ongoing operations.

What sort of planning permission was required for that unit you put into Newbury?
(AK) Any building that is going to exist for more than 28 days needs planning permission. Because Newbury already had planning permission for the new custody suite they went back to the planners and explained that for one year they proposed to have a temporary building erected in the car park to assist in the construction and that was accepted as part of the project.

And the building regulations?
(AK) The building is fully compliant with building regulations. Again, if it is to be on site for more than 28 days it has to have building regulation approval. Whether it is a custody suite, a classroom or offices, an application has to be made to either Building Control or through the use of an approved inspector who grants building regulations approval. Prior to Thames Valley Police signing an order for the building we provided them and the building regulations inspector with a full set of manufacturing drawings, in order to show them exactly what they were going to get. As the system is a pre-designed solution we had more information to hand than is usual for traditional buildings. With a modular solution the design function has got to be done upfront before anything is made.

So what will happen to this building after the 12 month hire period is over?
(AK) We will look to re-hire or sell the building to another force that has a similar rebuild situation or just needs more cell capacity. Once TVP have finished with this building in November it can be removed, transported and installed on a new site in less than one week...

Thank you for explaining  the project to the Review.

For more information on these products, please contact Andy King at Wernick Buildings Ltd. 01792 321222 secure@wernick.co.uk