Another month and another board meeting but not in the usual board room. Our board of directors headed out last week to our current project in Bradford, the Kala Sangam museum.

We are currently on site of the Grade II listed building to extensively reconfigure and upgrade the existing buildings facilities to create a state-of-the-art, fully accessible space for artists, audiences and businesses, reconnecting the building and arts centre to the local community.

After 3 years on site, Simpson have now completed their part in the refurbishment to the Grade II listed Hull Maritime Museum.

The work completed to the Museum has seen:

Restoration of the stonework, through poulticing/repairing and replacing significant stonework using traditional stonemason methods.

Replacement of the lead to the cupolas and timber structure inside and restoration of the existing ridge tiles while maintaining the original features to the building.

Installation of new mechanical and electrical services.

Opening up of the basement and 2nd floor to create 50% more public/exhibition space.

Repair and decoration throughout, including the creation a new café for visitors.

Reclaiming the central courtyard to create a stunning central glass atrium which will be open to visitors, along with access to one of the cupola’s which showcases the panoramic rooftop views across the city.

It has been a great pleasure to have been a part of the ‘Hull Maritime master redevelopment plan’

The board of directors headed out of the office last month to hold their monthly board meeting on site at Salford Cathedral, it was certainly a different scenery to the usual head office walls.

The beautifully decorated chancel ceiling was on show, some of the stain glass had been restored and in place and statues have been cleaned ready for painting, with more work to go to the Cathedral the board will be back in 2025 for another meeting.

Even the site team are now a part of history with their names delicately added to the chancel ceiling.

Restoration work continues at Salford Cathedral with decorating to the Chancel ceiling now underway. Delicate star detailing has been stencilled and gold leafing applied to stonework.

We have also been able to leave our mark, we have been honoured with our own stencilled star, a lasting memory of the time Simpson has spent helping to restore this amazing Cathedral.

Simpson have recently completed two more LFC projects for Sainsbury’s Argos, at Trafford Park, Manchester and Bedford. These are small distribution hubs, known as Local Fulfilment Centres, which support the nearby Argos Store in Stores.

Trafford Park – Manchester LFC

We originally completed the Trafford Park LFC in September 2022 and 2 years later we were back to extend the stock capacity of the unit by installing a full mezzanine across the warehouse along with multiple goods lifts, sets of stairs and parcel chutes. Along with the thousands of additional shelving bays to fill the new space. The challenge was that Sainsburys needed to keep their full operation live and without disruption throughout our construction period. To achieve this Simpson needed to problem solve and agree a suitable phasing that maintained the stocking and picking operations of the distribution centre as well as give us suitable working space to safely install the large steel sections of the mezzanine and the high volume of new or relocated racking.

Other challenges were around the need to reroute M&E services to enable us to build the new mezzanine whilst keeping the existing space operational with lighting and heating of the operatives.

Due to the nature of the project a high degree of day to day communication with the client and Ops teams were required and our site team built excellent relationships and received fantastic feedback upon completion.

Bedford LFC

This is a much smaller LFC project than we usually complete that had its own unique challenges. We took 2 small areas in an existing, large regional distribution centre and created an outbound / inbound area as well as office and canteen spaces. We needed to carry out the works around ongoing distribution operations and once again a high level of coordination with the Argos operations team and DHL network team needed to be achieved. The client was extremely cost constrained and Simpson worked with them to deliver excellent quality as well as an increased scope but also keeping within the original budget. The Simpson team once again received excellent feedback showing that we are the preferred choice on this workstream for Sainsbury’s.

On Saturday 14 members of the Simpson team took on the 10mile Yorkshire Tough Mudder at Broughton Hall in Skipton. There was certainly a lot of mud, sweat, but thankfully no tears, more importantly a lot of fun was definitely had.

The team did absolutely fantastic and all in the aid of raising money for charity. An amazing £2,000 has been raised so far for Lighthouse Construction Industry Charity and Katharine House Hospice.

A huge well done to everyone who took part, a big thank you to everyone for your support and a huge thank you to everyone who donated.