Merthyr Custody Suite

Sector: Blue Light

Budget: £10m

Client satisfaction: 9/10

On time: 100%

On budget: 100%

Apprenticeship weeks delivered: 77

Educational workshops: 560 students

The relationship between Willmott Dixon and South Wales Police has been cemented by awarding them another flag-ship building project, and the company is now the South Wales Police construction company of choice."

Mark Walters

Principal Officer | South Wales Police

An energy efficient facility, designed to maximise police officers time.

South Wales Police needed to replace its outdated facilities with next generation custody suites, that would deliver significant operational savings.

The project was delivered via the SCAPE National Major Works framework.

Equipped with the latest technology, the new purpose-built custody suite provides an energy efficient facility, that is designed to maximise police officers time with safe and secure registration, interview area and efficient detainee processing.

Working collaboratively with South Wales Police and operational custody staff, Willmott Dixon designed a new facility that met the specific needs of the police force, whilst also being fully compliant with Home Office regulations.

A sample cell and custody desk were also constructed to demonstrate the proposed designs, which allowed police officers to understand where fittings would be located before these aspects of the design were commissioned.

A further £160,000 in savings were delivered for South Wales Police through value engineering which included changing the specification from blockwork construction to offsite precast cell construction.

This enabled 42 cells to be installed within eight weeks.

Full Home Office guidance compliance: although not mandatory, the client wanted the design to be fully compliant with the Home Office’s design guidance.

Working collaboratively with the client, the team engaged Home Office representative and met this requirement.

An efficient charge desk design: to ensure the facility was managed efficiently, the client was keen to ensure that the charge desk was designed and constructed to exacting standards.

To achieve this the team built an exact replica of a section of the desk to ensure that the layout met the force’s requirement. The client was delighted as it ensured that they fully appreciated the layout and finishes before the desk was commissioned.

Fit for purpose prior to handover: upon completion we demonstrated ‘the ability to house and service detainees’ from day one. To ensure the client was satisfied the team demonstrated this over a 6 week period, as part of the construction programme.

9/10

Client satisfaction

83%

Local labour within 20 miles

79%

Local spend within 20 miles