Ysgol Gyfun Gwent Is Coed

Ysgol Gyfun Gwent Is Coed is Newport’s Welsh-medium secondary school, on Ffordd Dyffryn in Duffryn. Planning consent in 2020 covered a replacement teaching block and a separate sports building: a hall, changing rooms, a fitness suite and toilets, with pitches including a floodlit 3G on the far side of Lighthouse Road.

Powell Dobson prepared the images that accompanied the application. Newport City Council was the education client. The wider facilities programme was reported at about £18 million; the new teaching block, canteen and assembly hall opened ahead of programme in early 2023. That programme figure is not presented here as the cost of the sports hall.

The commercial point

Jamie Martin’s experience on this project is the sports hall.

School halls are simple in diagram and awkward in cost. Long spans, a high volume to heat, robust finishes, changing-room drainage, and a programme that has to respect term dates. A bill that collapses the hall into one item will come back with a qualification, or with a price that has guessed the rest.