Drax Contractor Village Moves Home!

Hundreds of contractors will soon descend on one of thecountry’s biggest power stations as they prepare to carry out a specialassignment…….moving their own village a few hundred yards across the site!

Drax Power Station near Selby in North Yorkshire is one of the most importantpower stations in the country, having gone from the country’s largest polluterto Europe’s largest decarbonisation project.

It is hugely dependent on contractors, so much so that over the years an entire‘contractor village’ has slowly developed on the sprawling site.

Associate, Paul Jacklin, said: “Drax is an enormous operation with one of thehighest generating capacities in the country and, by the nature of itsbusiness, can have hundreds of maintenance contractors on site at any one time.

“Obviously they need to be housed and there are a range of portakabins andsteel-framed buildings, along with swathes of parking, to accommodate themall.”However, Drax is nowre-configuring part of the site to facilitate plans to convert its final coalunits to gas and needs to move the existing ‘village’ a few hundred yards to anew 8.5 acre site at the other side of the facility. HBPW has been asked tolead the engineering element of the project.

“This is a major job,” said Paul, “and will feature 690 new car parking space,the majority of which are used by contractors which, in itself, gives a measureof the important role that contractors play.”

There will also be 10 new buildings as well as site access roads and associateddrainage.

“Ironically, contractors will be engaged to make all this happen so they have avested interest in making sure that everything is done on time and to their ownexacting standards!”