Content area
Full text
Working around the racing calendar has required some very careful planning from the project team as it works to finish in time for next year's world-famous festival.
Calendar complications
Festival deadline
Light frame, huge elements
Plaza work
The weighing room
Scheme: Cheltenham Racecourse Redevelopment
Client: The Jockey Club
End user: Cheltenham Racecourse
Main contractor: Kier Construction
Contract value: £45m
Engineer: Furness Partnership
Start date: Spring 2014
Completion date: Spring 2016
In just a few short weeks the eyes of the horse racing world will be on the events at Prestbury Park in Gloucestershire.
If that name doesn't mean anything to you then you are clearly not one of the almost 250,000 people who will crane their necks trying to cheer their chosen horses across the finish line in early spring.
Prestbury Park is the official home of Cheltenham Racecourse and of the Cheltenham Gold Cup - the most prestigious prize in National Hunt racing.
For four days in March, this outpost of provincial Britain becomes the epicentre of the equine world as the Cheltenham Festival sees an estimated £50m injected into Gloucestershire's economy.
But despite the huge amount of money those Cheltenham racegoers bring into the sport of horse racing, they have been short-changed in terms of facilities available to them at the course.
Now though, a major revamp across the course will see a new 6,500-capacity grandstand built alongside a complete refurbishment of the weighing room and jockeys' changing rooms as well as new public realm space, bars, restaurants and elevated walkways around the parade ring.
These walkways will eventually offer more race-goers an overview of the pre- and post-race parade ring, as well as enable easier pedestrian access to the new grandstand and viewing terrace in front of it.Calendar complications
It is a complicated project for the Kier team, not least because there are several race meetings that need to be accommodated during construction.
"Other schemes have had the luxury of having racing fixtures transferred to other courses"Andy Bolas, Kier
"That was one of the prerequisites when we took the project on: that we would have to work around the Cheltenham Festival and any other race meetings at the course," says Kier design manager Andy Bolas.
"Other schemes have had the luxury...