Managing Construction Projects With Minimal Disruption

Large-scale construction projects can often cause significant and lengthy disruption to the local area. An experienced construction company, such as Jarvale, will always follow best practices and have clear strategies to reduce disruption, balance the needs of different stakeholders and ensure a positive relationship with the wider community. So, how can you manage a construction project while minimising disruption?

When undertaking a large-scale commercial or industrial construction project, you can reduce disruption through detailed planning, including strategies specific to the type of project and the local area. It’s also vital to ensure consistent communication with stakeholders, including nearby residents, local businesses and building users.

Keep reading for more explanation of these best practices and a detailed example of how these strategies can be used to mitigate disruption in an educational construction project.

Best Practices for Reducing Disruption During Building Projects

Reducing disruption is a key part of any successful construction project. At Jarvale, we always follow these best practices to reduce disruption to building users, the local community and nearby businesses. This demonstrates that your business is committed to safe and efficient building processes and shows respect for the local area helping to maintain your business’s reputation and community standing.

1. Comprehensive Project Planning

To reduce disruption as much as possible during the build, the planning phase should involve detailed project planning. This should include potential disruptions that might affect building users, nearby residents or local businesses. Common disruptions include:

• Road closures or reduced access
• Blocked pathways or parking areas
• Noise pollution
• Dust and air pollution

The building contractors should develop clear strategies to mitigate these potential disruptions and reduce the impact of the build on people, businesses and wildlife. It’s a legal requirement that construction sites be organised so that vehicles and pedestrians can move around safely. To fully reduce disruption and ensure safety, the needs of children, people with pushchairs and those with disabilities or reduced mobility should be fully considered when creating safe pathways for pedestrians.

2. Secure Planning Permission

All new-build and extension construction projects will require planning permission. You must contact your local planning authority (LPA) through your local council to apply for planning permission. For most projects, the timeframe to receive planning permission is 8 weeks, although this can be extended to 13 weeks for large or complex projects.

As part of the planning application, local planning authorities are required to undertake a formal period of public consultation, which cannot be less than 21 days. As part of this period, the LPA must advertise planning applications to residents, neighbours and the local area, so they can make their views known. This should be done through a site notice, neighbour notification letter, newspaper advertisement, website or a combination of these methods according to statutory publicity requirements.

As an experienced large-scale construction company, Jarvale can handle all the necessary paperwork to ensure your project secures planning permission and liaise with the LPA when required.

3. Effective Communication with Key Stakeholders

Another key element of reducing disruption is to inform residents, building users and local businesses of the timeline and expected disruptions well in advance of the project’s start date. There should be clear channels for stakeholders to ask questions about the project or voice their concerns.

A Community Liaison Officer might be appointed for a large-scale building project to ensure effective communication between contractors and the residents affected by the project.

4. Reduce Noise Pollution

Noise pollution is typically the most disruptive element of any building project, so strategies should be in place to reduce this pollution, especially if the construction is taking place in a residential area.

Here are some of the strategies we use at Jarvale to reduce disruption caused by noise pollution during our construction projects:

• We use modern, low-noise machinery, which is regularly maintained and serviced to reduce noise levels.
• Temporary acoustic barriers can be installed to further manage noise pollution.
• All noisy work is scheduled during off-peak hours from 8 am to 6 pm on weekdays to reduce disruption to local residents. In the UK, The Control of Pollution Act 1974 allows local authorities to set permitted working hours for noisy construction work. For most councils, this is Monday to Friday between 8 am and 6 pm and Saturday between 8 am and 1 pm.

Case Study: Reducing Disruption in Schools During Construction Projects

At Jarvale, we have over 50 years of experience with large-scale commercial and industrial construction projects and have worked with many clients in the educational sector, completing school and university building projects. School construction projects present unique challenges, and managing disruption is always a top priority for our team.

Here are some of the ways our expert construction team has mitigated potential disruptions while working on school building projects, such as the design and construction of this two-storey education facility for Westbourne School in Sheffield.

Plan for Disruption

Disruption should always be expected and planned for. Here are some of the most common disruptions experienced during school construction projects and how our team can mitigate them:

• Noise pollution disrupts lessons and learning. We always complete noisy construction work outside of school hours or during school holidays if the schedule allows.
• Traffic disruption affects access to the school, particularly at drop-off and pick-up times. This can be mitigated by:
  • Managing the flow of traffic around the school through alternative routes and temporary traffic signals.
  • Creating a separate site entrance for construction traffic that is as far away as possible from bus stops, student entrances and drop-off zones.
    Ensuring that deliveries do not coincide with school start and end times to reduce congestion.
• Disruption to student activities and learning is caused by restricted access to facilities, such as playing fields, classrooms and halls. This disruption can be reduced by a phased approach so that only specific areas of the school are closed at one time.

Detailed Risk Assessment Process

School construction projects present unique hazards which should be reflected in a detailed risk assessment process. These are some of the elements that should be included in the risk assessment:

• Site boundaries and access
• Site rules
• Signing on and off-site
• Parking and contractor’s vehicles
• Noise pollution and dust creation
• Emergency procedures

Work Around School Schedules

Extensive building work should ideally be undertaken during the school holidays and half-term breaks to reduce disruption to students and staff. If this is not possible, noisy construction works should be completed outside of school hours, and extra consideration should be given to exam dates.

Site Security

When it comes to educational construction projects, site security is of the utmost importance. At Jarvale, we ensure that the site is as secure as possible to prevent students from accessing the site. Clear signage is always present, signalling the dangers and warning against trespassing. We always implement secure ‘sign in’ and ‘sign out’ procedures so we can keep track of who is on-site at all times.

View all of our past completed construction projects to find out how our team has reduced disruption across a wide range of sectors.

Complete Your Construction Project with Minimal Disruption with Jarvale

Whether you are looking to build from scratch or extend, upgrade or refurbish an existing building, you can rely on our team to complete your project on time and with minimal disruption. With over five decades of large-scale construction experience, we have perfected our project planning and risk assessment processes to mitigate potential disruptions and minimise the impact of your building project on building users, local residents and businesses. We have worked with clients from a wide range of sectors, including education, healthcare and retail.

Based south of Sheffield in Dronfield, Derbyshire, we have helped clients from a wide range of sectors across Yorkshire, Derbyshire and the Midlands. We hold certifications from Constructionline, have undergone Building Safety Act 2022 awareness training, and all of our operatives hold CSCS cards.

Jarvale offers both Design and Build and Turnkey Projects, so you can choose if you would prefer our expert team to oversee your project or handle the project management internally. View our full range of services to see how we can work together, or check our completed projects to see how we’ve helped past clients minimise disruption.

If you have any questions about our construction process, please fill out our contact form below, and we’ll be in touch at your earliest convenience.