Winchburgh & Calderwood Schools

Woolgar Hunter are currently providing Civil, Structural and Geo-environmental Engineering services for this new £65million schools development in West Lothian. As part of West Lothian Council's growth strategy, the town of Winchburgh is undergoing a major expansion, necessitating provision of new primary and secondary school facilities. On a smaller scale, Calderwood village is also expanding, again requiring new primary school and community facilities.

The Winchburgh schools development involves new denominational and non-denominational high schools, a shared sports block including swimming pool, and a new denominational primary school, along with extensive external works, car parking, sports pitches and amenity spaces. The site was challenging in its topography and adjacency to a remediated landfill site.

The high school buildings are three storey structures, with a single storey sports block and two storey primary & early years structure. Generally, the structures are steel framed with the upper floor slabs cast in situ concrete on metal deck. Large atrium spaces and entrance features demanded significant transfer structures. The roofs are a lightweight system supported on either metal roof deck or purlins. The foundation system involves 'traditional' concrete pads onto improved substrata, with 'suspended' ground floor concrete slab incorporating ground gas protection membrane and venting.

As noted above, given the topography of the sites, a bulk earthworks and ground improvement exercise was required to create level platforms for the proposed development. This work was undertaken by Winchburgh Developments is agreement with the council, and monitored by Woolgar Hunter.

The development required new surface water and foul water infrastructure tied into the existing local infrastructure drainage system. The surface water system has been designed to incorporate SuDS features, including surface swales and raingardens, to minimise below ground storage.

The Calderwood brief was to deliver a new education facility with a design capacity of two streams for primary and nursery use. The completed development includes external access / parking facilities with hard and soft amenity areas including a sports pitch.