The Hobson & Porter team based at Orsted’s site in Grimsby is benefitting from a collaboration which involves a health check from specialists at the local Oasis Health Club.

Hull-headquartered Hobson & Porter is part-way through a major project to extend Orsted’s onshore operations centre on Grimsby’s Royal Dock to service the world’s largest windfarms, Hornsea Projects One and Two. Hobson & Porter approached Oasis Health Club, also located on the Royal Dock, putting forward its project team to take part in a health screening initiative to find out how healthy members of the team are. Hobson & Porter joins a number of other local businesses which have taken part in this initiative.

Biometric screening is used to benchmark and evaluate changes in health status over time. It measures a wide range of physical characteristics from height and weight to body mass index (BMI), blood pressure, blood cholesterol and blood glucose through to visceral fat (the fat around vital organs) and metabolic age (a comparison of a person’s basal metabolic rate (BMR) and the average BMR for an age). Oasis Health Club has used Tanita Scales to carry out the measurements since November 2016 and is the only health club in the region to offer such a detailed analysis.

The team at Oasis Health Club recommends a specific course of action for each individual from Hobson & Porter’s project team based on the results of their health screening which has given them all an initial ‘health age’ based on their first results. They will be assessed again to ensure the changes they have made in their lifestyles are contributing to an improvement in their health and their ‘health age’. The screenings have produced an overwhelmingly positive response from the site team, with many members praising the initiative for encouraging major changes in their lifestyles. The success of the scheme has meant Hobson & Porter is now exploring using biometric screening in other parts of the business, while continuing to work closely with Oasis Health Club, using the fitness centre’s facilities.

The health screening added to Hobson & Porter’s Safe Works principles will ensure site personnel stay safe and healthy for the duration of the project for Orsted and hopefully far beyond.

Hobson & Porter facilitated a donation of bricks for Bishop Burton College’s construction students today (22^nd March 2018).

The Hull-headquartered construction firm enjoys a long-standing relationship with the college, having worked on a number of construction projects both at their main site in Bishop Burton and in Lincoln.

Hobson & Porter drew on its supply chain partners to bring about the donation, made by Ibstock, of several tonnes of bricks which were delivered by Jewson. Students were able to oversee the delivery and ask questions of Jewson’s driver.

The donation is just a small part of our drive to help secure the next generation of construction workers, and was welcomed by the college’s construction department.

Another collaboration between Hobson & Porter, Jewson and Bishop Burton College is Foundations Live, which will take place for the third time on 10^th October. Hosted by the college in its equine arena, it is the region’s largest co-located construction trade and careers event.

On 21^st March 2018, Hobson & Porter’s site team at Woodford Leisure Centre welcomed Hull City Council, along with selected media representatives, showing them the new extension housing a 25-metre swimming pool and smaller beginners’ pool, both with full disability access, sauna, steam room and state-of-the-art gym.

The preview took place less than a month before contractor Hobson & Porter is due to hand over to Hull City Council. Visitors gathered in the new café area, with words of praise from councillors Terry Gerraghty and Stephen Brady, centre manager Andy Burke, Hull Culture and Leisure’s area manager Colin Clark, and Mike Beal – Hobson & Porters construction director.

As well as creating an entirely new part of the centre, the existing building has also been refurbished and the roof replaced. The area around the leisure centre has been completely remodelled, with the creation of a large car park.

During the 18 months on site, the construction team, led by Kevin Harrison, has welcomed students from a number of schools and colleges, with St Anne’s Community Special School in Welton, Estcourt Primary Academy and Mersey Primary Academy, both in Hull, producing artwork for the Ivor Goodsite hoarding competition which received the runner’s up prize.

Everyone is now eagerly awaiting the opening of the new centre, which will provide a range of first-class facilities for people of all ages.

Young badminton player Owen Walker has continued his fine run of form since Hobson & Porter began sponsoring him just over a year ago. He trains regularly with the Yorkshire Squad in Beverley, Hull and Leeds and, despite a number of setbacks, he has achieved a great set of results in the following tournaments:

Oct ’17

Liverpool U17 Bronze

Yorkshire U17 Silver

Nov ‘17

Northumberland U19 Bronze

Jan ‘18

Yorkshire U19 Bronze

Feb ‘18

Tees Valley U17 Silver….Silver Medal in boys doubles

March ‘18

Nottingham U17 Silver….Silver Medal in singles and Bronze Medal in boys doubles

Northumberland U17 Silver…..Bronze Medal in boys doubles

Congratulations, Owen – keep it up!

Rooted in Hull is the urban farm project currently in construction at the derelict dry dock in St Peter’s Street, Hull. The idea is to introduce a community space for the growing of fresh fruit and vegetables and the rearing of livestock to help local people learn more about food and nutrition, farming and distribution.

Hobson & Porter helped with the formation of the project and to establish contacts, partnering with national building supplier Jewson to provide materials for the building structures. On Friday 9^th March, two of these structures – shipping containers completed by Hull College students – were taken to the Rooted site in St Peter’s Street. The containers had been in place at Hull College for just over a year, where students had panelled the interiors with wood, insulated the walls, installed electrics, painted and decorated and hung doors.

The standard of work the students achieved within the containers has helped them to secure further work to build street furniture for Hull’s newly regenerated city centre. Now in place at Rooted’s base, the containers will be used to help local people escape poverty and grow fruit and vegetables. It marks a successful year on this innovative and inspiring project, which looks forward to many more milestones in the months and years To come.

Hobson & Porter has completed a series of workshops at Bricknell Primary School aimed at educating and inspiring primary school girls to pursue careers in the manufacturing and engineering industries.

On 7^th March, Mark Young (Site Engineer) and Pauline Steele (Employment and Skills Coordinator) demonstrated to Year 4 pupils how maths is used in construction and engineering. Pupils then had the opportunity to get to grips with measuring equipment, including metre sticks and a Leica Total Station.

Girls from Bricknell, Appleton, Francis Askew, Paisley and Victoria Dock primary schools, which all form the Constellation Trust, took part in the event. It was part of the Women into Manufacturing and Engineering (WiME) initiative led by Green Port Hull and supported by Siemens Gamesa, Airco, Jobcentre Plus and others to encourage women to choose this career path.

Mark and Pauline visit schools and colleges on a regular basis to show pupils (and teachers) how maths can be applied in a practical way within the construction industry. The workshops help to highlight the skills gap in the construction industry, and the event at Bricknell focused on the under-representation of women right across manufacturing and engineering.

Feedback after the event was overwhelmingly positive, with staff commenting that they would like it to become an annual event. Here are some of the comments from pupils:

‘We’ve never done anything like this before.’

‘I’ve loved working with my friends.’

‘I wish we could do more things like this at our school.’

On February 19^th, the foundation plaque for the new molecular imaging research centre at Castle Hill Hospital was unveiled by Professor Nick Stafford, chairman of the Daisy Appeal charity and Professor Susan Lea, Vice-Chancellor of the University of Hull.

Hobson & Porter is the main contractor for the construction of the centre, which is a partnership between the Daisy Appeal, the University of Hull and the local NHS, to translate scientific and medical research advances into clinical use. It is being built adjacent to The Jack Brignall PET-CT Scanning Centre, for which Hobson & Porter was also the main building contractor. The building was opened by Virginia Bottomley in 2014.

The new research centre will house a GENtrace 600 cyclotron, which will enable researchers to create the ‘customised radiotracers’ that are needed to detect the early signs of cancer, cardiovascular disease and dementia. Also at the unveiling of the foundation plaque were representatives of GE Healthcare including Mr Trevor Boanas (Trustee), Dr Assem Allam (Trustee), Lars-Olof Arlasjo (GE Healthcare Consultant) and Martin Orbe (GE Healthcare Product Manager Cyclotrons).

The site team is currently undertaking enabling works, diverting services and drainage from the main building to the site of the new building. As 60% of the footprint of the new building lies on the site of a now-demolished building, the existing floor slab will be broken up after the enabling works are completed. This marks the beginning of the construction phase, which is likely to be mid-April.

Work is well underway on the new Women’s Centre on Preston Road in Hull. After a ground breaking ceremony on 28^th November, which attracted considerable local interest including BBC Look North, the site team from Hobson & Porter has completed piling for the new structure and have begun ground works.

The “Big Purple Build” received a Reaching Communities grant of £996,910 from the Big Lottery Fund which, added to funds already raised by the women’s charity, enabled the project to go ahead. Hull-headquartered construction company Hobson & Porter is on schedule to hand over the new Women’s Centre later this year. The fundraising campaign will continue in the meantime, raising money to furnish the centre.

Dave Blades, Business Development for Hobson & Porter, said: “We are proud to be involved in this fantastic project which will allow even more women from Hull to benefit from a range of vital services within a custom-built, state-of-the-art centre.

“At Hobson & Porter we strive to make a difference to the communities in which we work. This has seen us working for a number of local charities as well as fostering the skills of young people through our apprenticeship programme. It’s an approach which has resulted in some good scores as a Considerate Constructors Scheme Partner.”

Hobson & Porter is making rapid progress at North Point Shopping Centre, where the site team is transforming four empty retail outlets into six new opportunities for shops. The new shop fronts will be aligned to match the existing layout within the shopping centre, and the western entrance will be re-shaped. In addition to this, a new footpath is also being constructed for visitors to North Point from the western entrance.

Work began in October by stripping out redundant mechanical and electrical assets to make way for the installation of new assets, flooring, walls and fit-out of the new units. In the run up to Christmas and the start of the new year, a good portion of the blockwork and plastering has been completed and new M&E assets are being installed. By February, phase one of a five-phase development plan should be complete and ready to hand over.

North Point Shopping Centre was opened in the early 1970s, and already has more than 60 shops. This project will see even more retail opportunities offered to visitors and a noticeable improvement in their shopping experience.

Hobson & Porter has completed its third project at Ozone Business Park, underlining its firm relationship with commercial developer Horncastle Group. On the 32-acre business park, we have just handed over a warehouse, offices and car park for Timloc Building Supplies on Plot 6, the largest of all plots at 87,000 square feet.

Just a few weeks earlier on Plot 3, our site team worked to an ambitious eight-week programme to create an operations centre for Kersey Freight, accommodating 25 vehicles and 75 trailers. Due to the tight deadline, the 10-15 ground workers had to work long, irregular hours to complete the laying of foundations and tarmac, plus the installation of drainage and services within the timeframe.

Our relationship with Horncastle Group began in 2016 when we constructed a distribution warehouse for DPD, with the capacity to process 20,000 packages a day for delivery to residential and business addresses within a 50-mile radius of Howden. The £4m development sits on a 4.5-acre site and includes 6,716sqft of offices space, 59 van and HGV trailer parking spaces and 60 car parking spaces.