As the main contractor for the build of the new Harrogate Borough Council civic centre at Knapping Mount, our number one priority at Harry Fairclough Construction is the safety of local people. In the lead up to the school summer holidays, we are very aware of the fact that children can be attracted to building sites and want to help remind teachers and parents about the potential dangers so that they can keep young people informed.
If you have been following this site blog, you will know that we are now just over eight months into the project and construction activity on-site is picking up pace. You can keep up to date with what’s going on via the live site cam, which is a great way of showing children who are interested how it all works from a safe distance!
Active Response Security Services is helping to raise awareness of the dangers of construction sites amongst school children with their ‘Bee Safe’ campaign (you can follow @buzzbeeyks on Twitter for updates), which features the fun video below. Created by teaching staff to engage young children in this important message, the video is about a minute long and combines visual images and songs to help make it more memorable. As you can see, building sites are not playgrounds and there are life-threatening hazards that children must avoid.
All the necessary safety features are in place in and around the Knapping Mount site where the building of the new Harrogate Borough Council civic centre will continue throughout the summer holidays, but we hope this video helps as a reminder to parents that children should not be left unattended in its vicinity as an added precaution.
We are now eight months into this exciting project and you may have noticed that construction activity on-site has really picked up pace recently, as we enter the next exciting phase of construction. The steel frame for the main section of the offices is up and throughout the summer we will be working on the public access section, the heart of the building, where the local community will access council services. Over the next few months, the site will become a lot busier, with more vehicles making deliveries back and forth, bringing the materials we need to site. We will, as always do our utmost to minimise any inconvenience and appreciate your understanding during this busy time.
For those of you who have not met our new project manager we are pleased to announce that Peter Blackburn has joined our on-site team. Peter’s role is to look after the day to day management of all construction activity, planning and coordinating all aspects of the build, including appointing subcontractors and working with engineers, architects and Harrogate Borough Council to bring the vision for the building to life. Peter is looking forward to getting to know local residents and to learning more about the Harrogate community and if you wish to contact him with any questions or comments please email him at 
An important part of this project is to ensure that it is built to BREEAM ‘Excellent’ standards and we are on track to achieve this. BREEAM sets the standard for best practice in sustainable building design, construction and operation and has become one of the most comprehensive and widely recognised measures of a building’s environmental performance, ensuring future running costs are greatly reduced.
Harrogate Borough Council Headquarters 