Ipswich Station Refurbishment

As lead designers, Crayside Consulting successfully delivered the Form A design for the rewire of Ipswich Station including various intrusive and non-intrusive surveys, M&E, SISS, Architectural input, Civils & Structural design acting as CEM.

A key risk arose from partially completed installations left by earlier contractors, which threatened costly rework and programme delays. We mitigated this by conducting a phase-gated review of all existing wiring and equipment, followed by in-house condition surveys to validate what could be retained and what required replacement.

Maintaining live station operations was critical, so we devised a sequenced implementation plan with agreed installation windows, temporary power provisions and rapid reinstatement procedures. Early liaison with heritage officers and station operators secured sign-off for Listed-building and operational constraints, ensuring no unforeseen hold-ups.

From the outset we were working to a stringent timeframe with considerable detail to assess and obtain. We were able to deploy the intrusive surveys including third-party sub-consultants (ecology, GI) quickly whilst conducting reviews of the existing incomplete design/installation and reports from our visual surveys.

Our in-house survey teams and designers worked hand-in-glove from the outset to establish the survey requirements and to execute the surveys to meet the design and construction needs. This close coordination allows our survey team to adapt on-site to meet any specific design requirements, such as making minor adjustments during the survey process without incurring extra costs. This seamless teamwork also benefitted the project programme - if additional information was needed, the design team engage with the survey team to quickly obtain the necessary details, reducing potential delays from communication gaps.

The combination of a truly in-house service that is fully coordinated added value for our client throughout the course of the project.  Sometimes this was simple i.e. deputising for each other/across disciplines or reacting to emerging details that resulted in sending our survey team back to check details at short notice (without the need to charge our client). Our client has a fully surveyed, fully detailed scheme, that addressed all discipline matters and that has been fully coordinated in-house to mitigate risks during design stage.