Modular Classroom At National Park Visitor Centre

Tender description

he Brecon Beacons National Park is seeking to deliver an ambitious project aimed at providing a multi-purpose building at its National Park Visitor Centre, to allow it to deliver a wide range of educational, community and commercial activities. This project is expected to take up to three years to deliver, and a separate tender is being prepared for this project. In the meantime, the National Park Authority is without a building in which to deliver its core education service at the National Park Visitor Centre, and we are looking to procure a temporary modular building, which will allow our education services to continue, while we work through the development and construction stages of the larger project. An existing classroom space has now been repurposed to enable the centre to accommodate a post covid increase in visitor numbers. The Authority has historically welcomed over 5,000 young learners every year, giving them a valuable and inspirational National Park experience.  While young learners come from all over the UK and Europe, the majority come from schools based in the South Wales valleys, an area that has an above average poverty rate. We are currently having to turn down school requests, in part due to the loss of the indoor space, which allows the team to deliver briefings, provide safe space for equipment, and provides contingency space for bad weather. The temporary building space that we are seeking should allow to be constructed quickly as to allow the Authority to start accepting more school groups from next year. We would look at options to buy or rent a modular style building, that could be up and running as soon as possible. This modular building would be approx. 80m2 consisting of 60m2 of open classroom style space and a small office and small storeroom of approx. 10m2 each. The building should allow for full disabled access. The unit should have a excellent standard of decoration and floor covering. The unit will also have fantastic views of the surrounding Central Brecon Beacons, so plenty of windows to show-off this view would be preferable. We would consider a good quality refurbished unit to meet our budget. The building should allow for electrical heating, as this will be the only utility that we could provide in the timescales and budget. The building would also need to be removed on completion of the larger permanent building and would need to survive a transfer to a different location for continued onward use. We have contractors available to provide any concrete pad or any similar base preparation for the modular unit to sit on. We have secured a grant from Welsh Government of £55,000 to support this ambition, but this sum would also need to cover any ground preparation and connection of electricity supply. The Authority is therefore keen to explore opportunities to engage with suppliers of modular style buildings to provide the required facility within the budgets and timeframes indicated.