Customer: Nottingham City Council

Location: Forest Fields,Nottingham

Requirement:

The Nottingham City Council-owned children’s play centre in the Forest Fields area of the city offers a range of after-school activities for children aged from five to 14 years. The building housing the play centre was getting old and was in a poor state of repair, when end-of-year funding became available for a new building. With only three months until year-end – by which time the funds had to be spent – the Council had to quickly find a supplier that could deliver a building in a short timescale and within strict cost limits.

Solution:

The Council decided that a modular building solution was the best option to meet its cost and time constraints.

Deborah Millar, Play Project and Monitoring Officer at the Council, says: “We investigated various suppliers, and eventually chose Portakabin because of its excellent warranty offer. Other suppliers would guarantee parts of their buildings for five years, and other parts for ten years – but Portakabin offered a 20-year warranty for all structural elements of its buildings. This was the simplest and most comprehensive warranty available from any supplier, and swung our decision in favour of Portakabin.”

The Council met Portakabin to explain its requirements for the new play centre, and Portakabin designed a child-friendly facility utilising its spacious Titan Building System. The building includes a double-door main entrance, large main activity area, a sensory room, wet-play area, kitchen, storage room and toilets. For safety, non-slip floors were specified throughout.

The whole project, from placement of the order through to installation of the buildings, was completed in just eight weeks – comfortably meeting the Council’s year-end deadline. Portakabin assures customers of timely deliveries of its buildings in its unique Customer Charter, which promises to deliver all buildings on time and on budget. For complete peace of mind, if Portakabin ever fails to meet this commitment, it offers an additional six months’ product warranty on the building.*

Deborah adds: “The installation went very smoothly. The buildings were positioned within a day, and completed ready for fitting out over the next two days. The play centre has only been open for a short time, but already the kids love it. It looks so much better than the old building, and offers a lot more space. The service from Portakabin was very good throughout, and they have been very responsive to any requests since the building was installed.”

* Terms and Conditions apply. A copy is available on request.