Located at the end of Biggin Hill Airport’s runway, it houses 56 bedrooms over 4 storeys, as well as a restaurant, bar and fitness suite.

Challenges:
The hotel’s new access road was close to an airside fence and hangar building with existing retaining walls. To ensure that the wall was not overloaded, we carefully considered and coordinated the design of the area.

The proximity of the airport brought challenges regarding the design of the scheme, especially in relation to acoustics. The final design included high performing external wall build ups as well as high acoustic performance glazing and window units. Windows specified were all fixed / non-openable with mechanical supply and extract air. Internally, bedroom to bedroom acoustic performance was 10dB over Building Regulations requirements.

The hotel and adjacent access road are private and there was no surface water drainage within the vicinity of the site that we could connect into. We addressed this through routing the surface water into a detention basin with two deep bore soakaway chambers.

Working at a live airport presented additional challenges during construction, particularly regarding safety and logistics. We;

• Liaised with the main airport control tower on a daily basis, informing them of any works which could impact incoming fights (e.g. cherry picker and scaffolding activities). Our short-term programmes remained flexible to accommodate any changes in the airport’s operational requirements.
• Worked closely with the airport team to ensure that the required permit to work for the project’s crane was signed off well in advance and with no impact upon the construction programme.
• Ensured that all construction waste was tied down to avoid it blowing across the runway and presenting a security and FOD risk.
• Facilitated regular inspections by the airport’s H&S Team, which included checks of site security.

To assist with the development of the required hotel specification and mitigate any delays to the construction programme, we worked with the Hotel Manager, producing room mock-ups on site to check that room layouts and furnishing choices worked practically to avoid last minute changes. This minimised the impact upon the construction programme.

Quality Management:
We set out the quality requirements of the scheme to all sub-contractors at tender stage. This was reiterated during pre-start meetings and followed up by on-site inspections and quality sign-off gateways.

We produced a sample bedroom, allowing the Hotel Manager to familiarise themselves with the finishes and ensure that the layout was suitable.

Samples of individual finishes were agreed and kept on site for future reference as required.

Environmental and Waste Management:
The site achieved a Non-Road Mobile Machinery Compliance Certificate in recognition of our use of low-emission machinery.

22 tonnes of site waste was saved from landfill through the Community Wood Recycling Scheme.

Social Value:
Whilst our activities were limited due to airport security requirements, we still ensured that the project delivered meaningful social value to the local economy.
We employed two apprentices on the site for 16 weeks, delivering £20,658 of social value.