Background
Rollalong was awarded a contract worth over £100 million by Aspire Defence to design, manufacture and install 52 new high-class single living accommodation buildings for service personnel returning from Germany in 2020: the Army Basing Programme 2020.
The MoD chose offsite manufacture for this project as it needed certainty that the buildings could be delivered within the exacting time frame at cost and of the required quality. Rollalong was chosen as the preferred supplier based on its extensive experience of providing high-quality modular MoD buildings at a competitive price.
Rollalong was awarded the contract in December 2015 and design commenced in January 2016. The first modules began to roll off the production line in June 2016 and the first building was delivered to the site in November 2016.
Delivery
The project required Rollalong to design manufacture and install 1,521 modules to provide the 52 buildings required. The client, Aspire Defence Capital Works, provided the high-level scheme designs for the buildings in the contract, based on the MoD Joint Service Publication (JSP) Accommodation and Building Standards. Rollalong developed the detail designs for manufacture, ensuring compliance with the JSP scales.
By September 2018 Rollalong had manufactured half of the modules in the contract (750), had handed over 12 buildings and was working on six buildings. The first seven buildings, which provided 378 bed spaces, were officially opened in September 2017. Rollalong completed module manufacture in March 2019 and handed over the 52nd and final building in June 2020.
Manufacture and installation
In this contract, the principal contractor, Aspire Defence Capital Works, was responsible for providing the foundations, drainage, external cladding and roof, while Rollalong designed, manufactured, installed and fitted out the modules. These were manufactured in Rollalong’s factory in Dorset and delivered to the site either on Salisbury Plain or Aldershot. The modules were lifted onto the pre-formed foundations via a mobile crane by Rollalong’s own in-house specialist installation team. A typical building comprising 30 modules took five days to install and five days to weatherproof, which meant that on day 10 of the construction programme the internal rooms were ready to allow the finishing process to commence.
Module sizes vary but a typical bedroom module comprising two bedrooms, an en suite shower room and a connecting corridor is around 12.5m long by 3.8m wide by 3m high. The bedroom includes fixed furniture: wardrobes, drawers, cupboards and a desk. Lighting is provided by low-energy LED lighting and heating is via a wet central heating system.
All M&E services were installed in the factory and taken back to risers at the rear of the en suite shower rooms. Once delivered to site, the services in the discrete modules were connected together and taken back to the plant room, leaving final finishing to be completed on site.
The buildings were designed to meet the building regulations with internal compartments providing one hour’s fire resistance where applicable. The buildings were specially designed for the MoD and incorporate specialist measures to ensure that the building’s integrity remains intact under certain terrorist conditions; they are considered to be counter-terrorism compliant.
Outcomes
Rollalong won Best Offsite Project of the Year for this Project at the Constructing Excellence South West Built Environment Awards. The award recognises the outstanding work carried out on Salisbury Plain to support Aspire’s delivery for the Army Basing Programme.
Rollalong also featured in a commemorative book published by Aspire Defence Capital Works.
The book is a permanent record of the work carried out under the 2016-2020 Army Basing Programme across the Salisbury Plain Training Area and Aldershot, and Rollalong was included as one of Aspire’s key partners.