Queen Street retail unit

Client: Oxford City Council 
Project: Structural repair, renovation and alteration of retail premises
Department: Property Services
Date of completion: May 2019
Budget: £450k

Client

Oxford City Council’s Property Services are responsible for major repairs and improvements to the Council’s properties and estates including the monitoring of health and safety works to all properties.

Requirement

The 300 year old shop had fallen into disrepair over a number of years with water ingress, broken windows and faulty rainwater goods contributing to the saturation of external solid brick walls. Over time this had resulted in structural timbers rotting causing areas of the premises to become unstable. There was an urgent need for the conservation property to be extensively surveyed without causing further damage and then repaired and restored to create an upgraded, fully compliant commercial property.

Solution

ODS worked closely with structural engineers, designers and specialist temporary works engineers and scaffolders to plan and create a safe working environment in which to carry out these extensive repairs. The site, being in the city centre, was a challenge. All deliveries were timed to avoid peak footfall periods and high-risk activities such as scaffolding took place on Sundays. High risk crane works were carried out between the hours of 2am and 5am with road closures and pedestrian diversions in place to ensure the works were undertaken with little risk to the public.

Result

Due to our close working relationship with Oxford City Council’s Conservation Team our skilled workforce were able to manage this work with sensitivity, sourcing and using materials that met the demands of working on this historic building. The works were completed on time and to budget with the final result being a safe, upgraded retail unit becoming available within this highly desirable commercial area of the city.