At Rollalong we’re committed to supporting the armed forces community wherever we can, which is why we’re pleased to say that we’ve secured the Bronze Award from the Defence Employer Recognition Scheme (ERS) and signed the Armed Forces Covenant.
The MoD scheme encourages businesses and other organisations to support the defence sector and inspire others to do the same.
It offers Bronze, Silver and Gold Awards to organisations that pledge, demonstrate or advocate support to defence and the armed forces community and align their values with the Armed Forces Covenant.
The Armed Forces Covenant is a promise by the nation which ensures that those who serve, or have served, in the Armed Forces and their families are treated fairly.
“As a business located in the South West, where the UK armed forces have deep and long established roots in the community, we’re committed to supporting the defence sector and both current and former serving personnel,” said Rollalong Managing Director Steve Chivers.
“We are a major supplier of Single Living Accommodation for the MoD and we have signed up for this scheme in order to emphasise our support for the armed forces generally and former personnel in particular.”
As Bronze Award holders Rollalong has made the following commitments:
- we’ve pledged to support the armed forces, including existing or prospective employees who are members of the community
- we’ve signed the Armed Forces Covenant
- we’re armed forces-friendly and open to employing reservists, veterans (including the wounded, injured and sick), cadet instructors and military spouses or partners
Rollalong, a key supplier to Aspire Defence Capital Works, has won ‘Best Offsite Project of the Year’ at the Constructing Excellence South West Built Environment Awards.
The Award recognises the outstanding work carried out at Larkhill Garrison, to support ADCW’s delivery for the Army Basing Programme (ABP).
Rollalong is contracted by ADCW to manufacture and install single living modular accommodation, for soldiers rebasing under the ABP to garrisons across Salisbury Plain and at Aldershot. Around 2,500 bed spaces are being created to cater for troops returning from Germany in 2019 and units relocating within the UK.
The official ceremony took place on Friday 22 June in Bristol, where Rollalong’s award was accepted by Mark Duddy, ABP Programme Director. Mark then formally presented the award to Steve Chivers, Managing Director of Rollalong, and Bruce Dunford, Rollalong ABP Project Director, at Army Headquarters Andover on 19 July.
Steve said: “It is a great honour to receive this award and I am very proud of what we have achieved. Every project we deliver is a team effort and the award recognise the tremendous work that the entire team at Rollalong puts in, to deliver the best service to our clients.”
Mark said: “Rollalong and Aspire have done fantastic work at Larkhill and other ABP garrisons, to ensure we deliver the high standard of accommodation soldiers need and deserve. I am very pleased with the pace of progress and quality of delivery across all Project sites.”
Paul Dempster, Managing Director ADCW, added: “We are delighted that Rollalong has been recognised with this award. It is testament to the excellent working partnership between Aspire and our supply chain, which helps us ensure our construction programme stays on track and that we successfully deliver the new infrastructure required to help soldiers live, work and train.”
Rollalong has supplied offsite construction solutions for the ABP since 2006 from the state-of-the-art 11 acre manufacturing facility in Wimborne in Dorset.
Rollalong began offsite construction work at Larkhill Army Barracks in November 2016, which plans to have over 1300 bed spaces to provide a new home for troops returning from Germany in 2020.
Rollalong will build 1600 modules of MOD accommodation, comprising of 57 buildings in total to provide Junior, Senior and Officer rank single living accommodation.
On 27th September, Lt Gen James Bashall CBE, Commander Home Command officially opened the Junior Ranks Single Living Accommodation Village – just 10 months after construction began. This comprises of 378 bed spaces which are now occupied. (pictured right)
The event was attended by Rollalong’s Bruce Dunford and even featured on BBC South Today.
Rollalong provided high quality, modern, fully serviced and purpose built rooms to improve the lives of the soldiers, and also save the Defence of up to £240 million by 2022-2023 with the re-housing structure. Speaking of this, Allan Thomson, Chief Executive of Aspire Defence Ltd said: “These modern, purpose-built JRSLAs demonstrate the excellent standard of soldiers’ living accommodation which Aspire Defence continues to successfully deliver on behalf of the Ministry of Defence and the Army.”
Mark Duddy, ABP Programme Director said:
“It’s exciting to see the completion of these modern en-suite facilities so soon after construction started. I am delighted with the pace of construction.
The provision of new infrastructure is being delivered by Army Basing. Contract held by Aspire Defence Limited with the Defence Infrastructure Organisation (DIO) who appointed Rollalong.
We are nearing completion on our largest conversion project to date. Our Rollalong Special Works team have been working with Aspire Defence Services Ltd (ADSL) to convert 49 JRSLA Assets (Junior Ranks Single Living Accommodation) from 36 Bed Accommodation to 40 Bed Accommodation Blocks.
Under the 35 yr Project Allenby/Connaught (PAC) contract ADSL is supplying the Total Facilities Management element across the four Army garrisons on Salisbury Plain and in Aldershot.
(PAC) is the largest infrastructure PFI contract ever led by the MoD and has significantly improved the lives of some 18,700 soldiers (20% of the trained British Army) through the provision of modern, high quality, fully serviced and purpose built living and working accommodation.
The JRSLA Conversion project spans all four garrisons and will create an additional 196 soldiers’ bedrooms. This forms part of the army’s extensive rebasing programme. This challenging project has been delivered during normal working hours in occupied accommodation blocks. Through careful planning and excellent organisation, disruption to the resident soldiers has been kept to an absolute minimum. The project has provided the MoD with an extremely cost effective solution to create additional bed spaces.
The project is due for completion at the end of March 2015.