Warrington Wolves Stadium

“Emerald Bay tendered for the mains groundworks contract for the stadium expansion, highlighting its local knowledge, local workforce and community links as well as its ongoing support of the rugby club.”

Address: Halliwell Jones Stadium, Warrington

Business Need

In 2011, Warrington Wolves rugby club announced plans to extend  their Halliwell Jones stadium by 2000 seats for the 2012 season. The development was the first expansion since the stadium opened in 2003, taking the capacity from 13,000 to 15,000. It is also hoped that it will help in the bid to host games for the 2013 Rugby League World Cup.

As well as experiencing on-the field success, off-field the club are involved in all aspects of the community developing the Foundation infrastructure already in place. The club wants to help the business community connected with the club to go from ‘strength to strength’ particularly in the present economic, and wanted the new development to be of benefit to local businesses and therefore invited them to tender for the work.

The Approach

Emerald Bay tendered for the mains groundworks contract for the stadium expansion, highlighting its local knowledge, local workforce and community links. We were aware of how high profile the project was to the town of Warrington, and therefore demonstrated our previous experience of working to tight deadlines at major leisure attractions.

We knew on this project that we had to be responsive and flexible, particularly as the stadium was still hosting games during the construction and the site had to be clear and accessible by the public for these games. From our previous knowledge of working at the Tetley-Walkers brewery which was on the stadium site, we also knew that we may come across some unforeseen issues when undertaking the groundworks, and therefore had this at the forefront of our minds.

Deliverables

Emerald Bay’s key deliverables were as follows:

• To undertake the substructure and drainage for the North East and South East quadrants.
• To attend on the pilers to ensure that all works were in the correct locations.
• Construction of the brickwork and scaffolding for both quadrants.
• Worked with the engineers to ensure that any design changes for the new development kept within budget.
• Ensured high quality construction though-out i.e. structure and finishes
• Delivered the scheme on schedule and within budget