Changing Places Toilet at Brecon Beacons National Park
January, 2023
Brecon Beacons is one of Wales' three national parks (like Snowdonia and Pembrokeshire), the Brecon Beacons has long been protected for us all to enjoy. The area is recognised for its spectacular landscapes demonstrating ancient climate change, mountain building and sea level changes – with the hills and valleys being marked by glaciers from the Ice Ages. With a changing place toilet from Danfo, the opportunity for more people to enjoy Brecon Beacons increases
Tender to provide a modular changing places toilet
Brecon Beacons National Park Authority issued a tender to provide a modular changing places toilet at their Visitor Centre. The foundation base and supply of utility and waste services were to be done by others. This tender was for the design, supply and installation on site of the modular changing places building.
Construction drawings were submitted of the modular facility that we provide followed by site meetings to meet the groundwork contractor. These meetings determined the size of the foundation required, where the service pit needed to be located along with colours of certain parts of the changing places building and timescales for completion.
We designed the changing place and built it in our factory. Once the modular changing place building was complete we arranged to transport the building to site and lifted the building into place on the concrete base foundation ready for the connection of services to the building.
Challenges we faced to place a changing place toilet at a national park
- Following the first site visit it was clear that the design of our standard changing places modular building had to be changed to meet the specific site requirements. It was part of a larger construction project where a disabled car park was being built also. In order to fit the sit requirements the entrance door to the facility had to be moved from one end of the building to the other. As a consequence the interior elements had to be moved around to accommodate the new location of the door. The service cupboard had to be moved from the right hand side to the left hand side whilst still achieving 1000m from the edge of the cupboard to the centre of the toilet pan to meet regulations. The toilet pan, bed and sink also had to be relocated within the building.
- The site overall is being redeveloped to incorporate disabled parking bays and access. As a result there was a ramp built near to the groundslab. In order to lift the building into position we insert metal plates into the steel ring beam of the building and these are removed when the building is in place on the groundslab.
Whilst installing the building the metal plates were hitting a course of bricks that were part of the ramp installation. See pic. The building needed to be moved 50mm towards the brick in order to line up correctly.
Metal plate hitting the brick
Overcoming challenges
- At the first site meeting exact measurements were taken and the door location established. This information was fed into our design department and in partnership with our project managers we redesigned our standard modular unit to incorporate the new door position. Moving the equipment around inside the room impacted on internal dimensions, such as the centre of the toilet pan measurement to the nearest wall and also redirecting waste pipework. Once our design was complete we shared it with the Changing Places Organisation to ensure that it still met with requirements. It was also shared with the client to get agreement with them and to ensure the groundswork contractor could achieve the necessary connections.
- As part of the installation arrangements we organised for the groundswork contractors to be on site also. We paused the installation and consulted with the groundswork contractor. It was agreed to remove the two bricks causing an obstruction in order to move the building to the desired location, see pic. Good communication and relationships with the groundswork contractor helped achieve this outcome.
Bricks removed to achieve desired location
Changing place toilet sucess
The changing place building was delivered on time in order for the client to engage other contractors to complete reinstatements around the building. Their deadline was to have the whole project complete by 31st March so our delivery in January was in keeping with their timeline.
Ready for groundswork contractors to complete works
