Sitting alongside the West Coast Mainline, Bletchley Super Depot is an innovative project for the way it brought learning and storage facilities together. Our scope was to build offices, classrooms, welfare facilities and breakout areas, alongside material stores and 174 parking spaces, some with EV charging infrastructure. The site will also serve as a strategic base for Network Rail with the development of East West Rail.

Division
Transportation
Approach
Design and build
Sector
Rail
East Midlands

£12m

Project value

£5.6m

Total social value

 

Beside the busiest mixed-use
railway in Europe

Set up for success

At the heart of the project was an aim for a quality build to support rail workers and operations. Welfare facilities on-site include toilets, showers, kitchens, laundry, lockers and drying rooms, plus an outdoor wellbeing area - which was an idea from Kier teams during the build. Indoor and outdoor classroom spaces are forming foundations for future rail learning and storage facilities to the south of the site include a workshop with a mezzanine floor, battery storage zones and a vehicle entrance. 

"One of the most important, but sometimes difficult to deliver, improvements on the railway is providing top quality staff accommodation. It must and always should be our priority to support those that work hard for our industry. What has been achieved at Bletchley by NR and Kier, in the face of some difficult circumstances is outstanding. 

To provide such an excellent accommodation, office, meeting, training and storage facilities whilst also making sure that the costs were under control is really impressive. Work like this truly leaves a legacy for many years to come and everyone involved should feel rightly proud."

James Dean, Route Director WCML South, Network Rail

Expertise to deliver

Bletchley Super Depot was delivered to a timescale that allowed Network Rail to begin operations as soon as feasibly possible. Accommodating design changes with the project underway also required regular liaison between the construction and engineering teams, the designer and the client, to ensure timeline disruption was minimal. The project also saw many mechanical and electrical (M&E) elements, a key discipline which our team were able to bring to the project.

A lasting community legacy

Behind any Super Depot, is a super project team too. Many fundraising and social value initiatives were undertaken, for causes that were either close to the hearts of the team, or the local community of the project. From a community car wash, through to gathering Christmas presents for local children in hospital or collecting donations for the local foodbank, the team stepped up. Their work supports Kier’s Building for a Sustainable World framework, our commitment to making a difference for Our People, Our Places and Our Planet.

Over £34,000 raised in community donations

Our team at the Bletchley Super Depot project also transformed the field of Drayton Park Primary school into a themed garden for the schoolchildren. Over £27,000 worth of work and materials were put into turning the overgrown and unusable space into a beautiful area where vegetables and fruit can be planted.  

 

"The years of enjoyment that will come out of this will be fantastic, and we’re looking forward to sharing it with the children in the warmer summer months. We are incredibly appreciative of all the hard work and time that Kier have put into our school and have been overwhelmed by the kindness and generosity they have shown."

Laura Greenwood, head of school at Drayton Park Primary said:

Kier Group plc (LSE: KIE)
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