Claydon Grain Store Buckinghamshire

L F Pearce & Son were instructed to erect a new grain store facility on a greenfield site next to some existing buildings. New drainage to be installed and electricity connections and a new entrance into the buildings.

This build has been in the planning stages for a couple of years, a long time coming until we got on the ground. It has been erected pm a greenfield site but has got existing livestock buildings close by. The build consists of 3 shed adjoined together, with the middle shed being the intake and plant room.

All of the footings have been drawn in house using Trimble Earthworks and then have been sent to the machines and the rover for digging out and then setting out the footings and holding down bolts. We have found using the earthworks from the office and sending to site has sped up the time it takes to pour the footings, and the accuracy is so much better.

There were 49 footings in total, and because all 3 sheds were to joined together these had to be bang on so when we followed with the erection of the steels/rafters and cladding they all joined up without any issues. Precision and attention to detail was key. We found the front cladding especially challenging because we couldn’t clad in one go along the front as the door manufacturers had to do some work; this meant we worked out the number of sheets and joins on the sheds so we didn’t get any ugly visible joins along the front that would stand out but could carry on while we were on site.

Although the project was in fruition for such a long time, the project has constantly been evolving with new ideas being added as it has been built. We have recently installed a rainwater harvesting tank to catch the water coming off the buildings which will be used for the sprayer and washing down facilities a good cost saving exercise and environmental as they will be reusing the water. Extended the concrete apron along the front and stoned an area around the back for more hard standing.

The internal storage area sizes were changed to reflect updated tonnages and a wet bay next to the intake pit was added for efficiency during harvest and using the store to its maximum capacity.

The build should have had a new entrance into the site, which we would have constructed as the first job on site to make it easier for deliveries, but for part of these works we needed a 184 agreement. Normally these are pretty easy to obtain, however HS2 have a blanket policy of allowing traffic maintenance/calming measures/road closures whenever needed and so it made it difficult for us to obtain a licence for a period of time when they also had multiple road closures in place.

With the drier being exceptionally noisy to run, the client opted for composite panels to the back of the middle building to limit any noise from the drier. A composite roof has gone on, including roof lights to let natural light come in through the day which also keeps heat in and limits the noise. The client has decided to clad the building in green as although there is a large expanse hopefully having it in the green will help blend into the countryside around and so it won’t stand out.