Eastern High School

Our team of education specialists have built the new environmentally friendly Eastern High School in Cardiff which will accommodate 1,520 pupils.

The new school has replaced Rumney and Llanrumney High Schools on the former Cardiff & Vale College Trowbridge Road Campus site.

The innovative building will be shared with Cardiff and Vale College who offer a range of A Levels and Level 2 and 3 vocational courses. The school will cater for 11-19 year olds with progression routes for students from Year 7 to Year 13 and create operational savings for the Council by sharing facilities between the school and college.

The project also provides a first class community facility for the East of Cardiff. A number of areas within the school are accessible by the public; with the ability to zone off the school. The scheme successfully balances the safe guarding of children and the associated secure zones with the CAVC shared areas.

The new school is based on a standardised open plan design developed by Powell Dobson, arranged over 2 floors with out of hours community access to key facilities.

The building includes 59 classrooms, three open teaching spaces, a main hall, dining area, kitchens, gym, changing rooms, shop, toilets, staff rooms and activity studio.

It will include 79 car parking spaces and racks for 81 bicycles. To the south of the school building there is also a dual marked 3G rugby/football pitch to Sports England standard, with a baseball diamond and eight-lane 110m hurdle track.

Environmental Success

Connection to grid electricity was not possible for 20 weeks at the start of the project and normally a diesel generator would be required, however, our team trialled a diesel hybrid system which prevented 57 tonnes of carbon entering the atmosphere. This is the equivalent of a Boeing 747 flying non-stop for 2 hours!

As always, we set high standards when it comes to reducing waste. Through incorporating our waste strategy on site, waste consumption was largely reduced against our baseline targets. 96% of our waste generated was diverted from landfill and only 5.4 m3 of waste was generated per £100k spend.

The Eastern High site was partially bounded by a SSSI (A Site of Special Scientific Interest) designated by Natural Resources Wales (NRW). The drainage strategy and management of site water process was successfully implemented to ensure compliance with the requirements for NRW. In addition the team carried out a weekly rubbish collection within the SSSI to help preserve the natural ecosystem.

The School is classified BREEAM Excellent and EPC rating A.

Investing in our community

Throughout the project our team were committed to leaving a lasting positive legacy in the local community and carried out several community investment initiatives and activities to ensure this. The team refurbished the local community library, held school engagement sessions, took part in Prescoed Prison Resettlement Scheme providing 3 ex-offenders training and work experience, opened the site for Open Doors Week, attended careers fairs and provided work experience.

As well as community activities we also committed to local spend with 84% of our spend with local businesses in Wales.

Using the Welsh Government Value Wales Tool kit the project attained a Welsh local multiplier value of £1.75, indicating that for every £1 spent on the project £1.75 was reinvested into the Welsh economy.