The Ingleside Birthing Centre is owned by Salford City Council, and has recently been refurbished with the help of a crowd-funding, local businesses and members of the public who donated over £130K to help bring the Victorian mansion back to life.
Seddon were awarded works for the refurbishment and conversion of the centre in 2017. The project consisted of converting the existing care home into a modern birthing centre for the people of Salford. The works included a new roof and windows and various patch render repairs.
The Victorian building was originally built in the 1900s and was previously a locally listed building. The building originally was home to Mr Pilkington of the Pilkington Tile Company. He then gifted the building to the people of Salford, along with the park, under the understanding that it was always going to be used to benefit the people of Salford and not to be sold as an asset. As a result of this kind offering, the buildings former use was acting as a care home for the majority of its life and prior to Salford City Council owning the building, it was left under the care of guardians. Seddon faced numerous project challenges throughout the scheme, such as having to redesign and further investigate problems with the existing structure. Seddon also had to level all existing floors, so they would be able to hold the birthing pools which would be a major facility of the birthing centre.
Peter Openshaw, Assistant Director (Regulatory and Client Services)Seddon, embraced the required teamwork and flexible approach and took the time to ensure that they fully understood the bespoke needs of the facility. They were able to propose innovative solutions to overcome a variety of challenges faced throughout the project allowing the works to run smoothly and efficiently.
Seddon had to make some innovative solutions on this project, such as reconfiguring the birthing suite layout to suit the floor levels which weren’t previously known.
Throughout the project we saw the Client team and our Site Team work collaboratively, holding regular meetings, to improve the delivery and quality of the project. This built stronger relationships throughout the project and aided towards a smooth delivery meeting all client requirements.