CD Hood Ltd, commercial builders in Cambridge, realise that this can take some careful consideration, and is down to both the school’s individual requirements and needs. If for example there is a leaking roof, then this will need to be repaired or replaced, as well as if a boiler that is nearly 20 years old, then provisions will be need to be put in place for its replacement. 

A building will also need to be checked by a surveyor, who will in most cases provide an appraisal of the buildings condition, to make sure there is no asbestos present, or if the electrical wiring needs replacing or if the structure dates back to 1950’s whether there is any high alumina cement concrete on the site. 

A possible survey of your school might include:

• Geotechnical – making sure the foundations of the building can be determined, taking into consideration historical drawings, any possibility of contamination, the level of the water table underneath and if there are any obstructions.

• Structural – this will explore the type and scope for any structural survey needed, and will be determined by a structural engineer of the design team, these will include electrical and mechanical. • Service below ground – these are harder to complete, and trial holes might need to be necessary to find out where they have been laid.

• Asbestos – there are three main types of asbestos, these include:

Chrysotile, this is a white curly fiber. Chrysotile accounts for 90% of asbestos products. Amosite, this is brown or grey, with straight fibers. Crocidolite, this is blue and has straight fibers, and is a member of the amphibole group
 
• Disability Discrimination Act – the shortcomings in buildings might be quite obvious, such as poor access for wheel chair users, but it will probably be worth obtaining a comprehensive assessment from a specialist. The outcome of this surveyor will enable your school to make choices about what needs to be kept, what can be repaired and what needs to be got rid of.

If you are planning your school refurbishment, then give CD Hood Commercial builders a call, we work throughout Cambridgeshire, Essex and Herts, we have a vast amount of experience in the school sector, which can be the difference between a project going slowly and not, the photograph is part of the development we completed for St Christopher's School - Why not check out some of the other school projects we have work on  @ http://www.cdhood.co.uk/projects

Director of Enterprise at the Department for Business Innovation and Skills (BIS) – is to speak at a The Cambridge Cleantech event on Monday, July 9.  Sir Robin Young, Cambridge Cleantech Board member will chair the event Sir Robin said: “We are delighted and privileged that Adam, as a very senior government official, is giving his time to come and speak to the business community here in Cambridge. “We believe that the CleanTech sector is rapidly emerging as the next wave of the Cambridge hi-tech phenomenon. Since so much of the sector is influenced by Government regulation, such as for feed in tariffs and zero carbon buildings, it is critical that government listens to business leaders and adopts the relevant policies for enterprise and growth.“

 Adam Jackson said: “I am delighted to be speaking in Cambridge, which has such importance as a leading UK and European centre of excellence for hi-tech innovation and entrepreneurship and is helping to drive the economic growth we need.“I look forward to discussions with the business leaders in Cambridge so I can hear directly what they need to create the right environment for enterprising and innovative companies to flourish.”Tony Raven, chief executive of the university’s commercialisation arm, Cambridge Enterprise, will also be speaking at the event on ‘Accelerating Enterprise and the Commercialisation of the Science Base.’
 
Experienced commercial builders CD Hood Ltd are happy to provide a range of building services for growing enterprising businesses in Cambridgeshire.

Commercial builders CD Hood Ltd specialise in delivering impressive reception areas and effective shared spaces. We appreciate how important it is to show off your business and create inviting and effective spaces for you to conduct your business.

So it was interesting to note recently that the Institute for Manufacturing at Cambridge University has unveiled a new gallery featuring a fascinating portfolio of images taken from the Marshall Group’s industry portfolio. The new Marshall gallery is in recognition of the generous donation to the IfM’s building fund and an appreciation of the Marshall Group’s generosity. The opening of the gallery captures the close relationship between the two Cambridge organisations.

The gallery was officially unveiled by Sir Michael Marshall, chairman of the Marshall Group with pictures depicting several highly acclaimed manufacturing achievements such as Concorde’s famous ‘droop nose’ – designed and built in the 1970s by Marshall Aerospace – and work underway in Marshall Aerospace and Marshall Land Systems hangars.

If your business has a special relationship with an academic organisation or has an interesting collection of objects or art connected with the business what better way to show it off than by incorporating it into your commercial building.  Experienced commercial builders CD Hood Ltd love a challenge and reception areas are perfect galleries for showing of your products, its history or celebrating special relationships between businesses.

Cambridge became the world's first 'white space' city as Neul a Cambridge-based world leader in technologies for the “Internet of Things”, recently announced the deployment in Cambridge of the world’s first city-wide wireless network in white space, enabling a host of “smart city” applications. White space is the unused and underused parts of the wireless spectrum. Neul’s technology opens up these channels for wireless communication. For example it involves the world’s first ever smart electricity meter reading over a white space network. This is the first step towards smart electricity grids that will allow electricity supply to be more efficiently matched to real-time demand.

In addition to the smart grid, Neul’s network opens up other possibilities for the smart cities of the future, enabling smarter transport and traffic management, city lighting and other municipal services. "In a world of smart phones and mobile broadband it is easy to imagine that wireless connectivity has now been solved,” said Glenn Collinson, Neul co-founder. “It hasn't. “Mobile networks are great for people but terrible for machines. At Neul we are…. demonstrating that the smart city can happen now with a new wireless standard called 'Weightless', specifically designed for embedding in electricity and gas meters, air quality sensors, recycling points, street lighting, parking spaces, traffic lights and ... well ... ‘things’ rather than people."

Cambridgeshire commercial builders CD Hood Ltd are proud to be associated with technological companies, offering service contracts and building services to companies like Sagentia and Domino.   We look forward to more commercial builds that provide Smart buildings for Smart Cities.

Each year ideaSpace Enterprise Accelerator,( iEA) looks for partners to develop projects to help ventures with high growth potential in the East of England. They look for a range of different approaches to support new business ventures who will up to get £160,000. Those shortlisted this year are:
Labstract, a bioscience support company that provides tools and lab facilities to small and growing biotechs, giving them access to laboratory equipment and facilities, as well as providing laboratory training to entrepreneurs and innovators to develop key skills.
Smart Anglia, a virtual centre of excellence network, connecting a range of corporates, community projects, local authorities, SMEs and universities. A key aspect will be business incubator links that use the “hub and spoke” model to support the development of fledgling companies. The IP Network is a special interest group open to firms in the ICT industry and will be based at Innovation Martlesham.

Mentor East, a programme proposed by Cloud Speed, the organisation behind Springboard, to partner with Cambridge Network and Norfolk Network to deliver a series of “speed mentoring” events in Cambridge and Norwich.

Wysing Arts Centre has proposed a programme of artist-led creative workshops for early stage innovation businesses.
1NNOVATE is an online accelerator offering one-to-one start-up mentoring and crowdsourcing to early stage enterprises.

Commercial building specialists in Cambridgeshire CD Hood Ltd are always willing to work with new ventures and new businesses in the East of England to help them get their buildings right for them.