An important milestone has been reached in the construction of Great Sankey Neighbourhood Hub with the new swimming pool roof finally in place.

A brand new glass roof has now been installed, which will bring lots of light and air into the pool hall once the facility is fully open next year.

A new viewing gallery will also soon be complete, providing the opportunity for spectators to observe the action in both the main and training pools, which have been upgraded to deck level swimming pools.

The construction work to refurbish the existing pool roof and viewing gallery has thrown up significant challenges, which have caused considerable delay to the project and additional cost to its refurbishment.

Initially, the existing pool hall roof was going to be recovered and treated. However, once work started to remove the internal ceiling, it was clear that it needed far more work than initial surveys indicated.

The construction team discovered the failure of the concrete ring beam supporting the roof trusses, which occurred during the building’s original construction in the 1970s.

This meant that work on the pool below had to be halted, whilst temporary props were installed to support the roof structure.

As a result of this, both the pool roof and viewing gallery had to be redesigned to introduce additional permanent steel frames to support the affected area of the concrete beam.

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