ELECTRICAL & ELECTRONICS
SPEEDING UP CONSTRUCTION
SPELSBERG IBT
SPELSBERG ENCLOSURES HELPS BUILD
NORTH WALES’ NEWEST PRISON QUICKLY
Casting Spelsberg IBT electrical enclosures
into concrete building panels helped speed
up construction of the UK’s newest prison
in North Wales.
HM Prison Berwyn, which opened in
February 2017, will become Britain largest
prison with capacity to accommodate
2,106 men. Costing £250m to build, it is
state of the art in every way and designed
for rehabilitation and education rather than
punishment and incarceration.
The men will be housed in one and two-
man rooms – they are not called cells – and
they are also fitted with showers and
toilets. Other facilities in the prison include
an education block, workshops, sports hall,
HM Prison Berwyn
will be able to
accommodate 2,106
men
94
PECM Issue 34
multi-use games areas, a health centre, and
multi-faith centre.
The objective of HM Prison Berwyn is to
maintain as much normalcy as possible
to aid eventual re-entry into society
and to educate the men so that they are
employment-ready upon release. It will
also create about 1,000 jobs and generate
£23m for the local economy.
Construction of the three four-storey
accommodation blocks was entrusted
to Precast Concrete Structures Ltd (PCS),
which specialises in the design, off-site
manufacture and erection of buildings
using precast concrete. The company has a
track record with other prison construction
projects, as well as apartments, hotels,
offices and student housing: often meeting
strict construction deadlines.
For the Berwyn project, PCS used both
pre-cast floors and walls, the former
incorporating solutions cast in for lighting,
heating and drainage, the latter coming
complete with window and door frames.
Some walls also have cast into them
Spelsberg BS1 electrical enclosures that
provide sockets for TV and computers, as
well as BS2 enclosures that house power
connections. Both enclosure models are
from the IBT range, designed specifically
for pre-cast concrete construction projects.