Lakeside sports complex boosts Doncaster's transformation
Manchester City Council Building Surveyors announced the winners of their prestigious Built In Quality Awards in February at a special award ceremony to celebrate the quality of construction in the city
The new £32 million facility is the first of its kind in Doncaster to integrate sport and community facilities into a single high quality venue at one of Doncaster’s most prestigious locations.
It is situated at Doncaster Lakeside, close to the lake edge and set within a 10-acre parkland setting for public use.
The parkland has a natural amphitheatre especially created to attract outdoor summer events and was the most ideal choice for the borough’s flagship sports venue.
The centrepiece of the complex is an iconic bowl stadium with curved roof and roof mounted floodlights. The design team first met with Building Control in 2004 and the benefits of working together at an early stage have been clearly evident throughout the construction period.
Andy Gutherson, Doncaster Council’s Group Director, overseen the project. He had responsibility for Planning, Building Regulations and Safety at Sports Grounds legislation.
He said: “With a project of this nature there are always a number of issues to resolve. “Our involvement varied from assessing the nature of the site at the pre-construction phase right through to issuing the safety and Building Regulations completion certificates.
“Contaminated land and low lying surfaces created some initial challenges, but we were involved early enough to offer solutions as well as being able to ensure that Building Regulation energy efficient construction methods were incorporated into the overall design.”
SITE SOLUTIONS
Initially the site was found to contain methane gas, so Building Control was involved in ensuring that a suitable gas membrane and ventilation system was installed under the whole footprint of the stadium building, allowing the gas to pass through and be ducted to external air.
As the whole area of the site was low lying, extensive ground improvement works had to be carried out to raise ground levels. Meanwhile, extensive drainage techniques were employed in deep trench excavations.
DESIGN ISSUES
As stated, Building Control, the architects and fire engineers worked together throughout the design stage to overcome some difficult design issues. For example, fire protection to steel columns in the vomitories was omitted in certain locations after it was demonstrated that any potential heat from a fire would not cause failure of the structural member.
ENERGY EFFICINECY
The stadium has been built utilising energy efficient materials to reduce the energy consumption of the building. Due to the varying uses of the building, not all parts of it will be heated and insulated. This provided the designers with some very intricate and challenging detailing of the insulation.
Before completion, the necessary areas of the building were subject an airtightness pressure test in order to prevent undue heat loss from the building.
SAFETY
The Safety at Sports Grounds team also ran a number of successful training exercises prior to the first event in order to analyse and review the management and physical performance of the complex.
Under Safety at Sports Grounds legislation, this assisted in ensuring a smooth transition for the first fixture and where 14,500 people were in attendance.
A COMMUNITY STADIUM
Doncaster’s new sports complex is a concept that integrates sport and community facilities – it is the new home for Doncaster Rovers Football Club, Doncaster Belles Ladies Football Club, Doncaster Lakers Rugby League Club and Doncaster Athletic Club.
All the clubs are committed to the scheme and have demonstrated a strong desire to help deliver the stadium in partnership with the local authority.
Sport in the community will be delivered through dedicated space for football, rugby and athletics.
Complementing the sporting activities are a number of educational and community uses. The current sport/education mix includes a five-a-side football centre; martial arts academy; smallscale conference facility; IT suite; and a health and fitness club.
The sports complex includes the following facilities:
- 15,271 capacity stadium
- Reinforced pitch for use by football, rugby league and rugby union at all levels, up to and including international
- Restaurant with views over lake and main stadium pitch seating up to 350 people
- Sports bar holding up to 500 people
- 2,500m2 flexible open plan space
- 16 executive boxes, each holding 10 persons (additional boxes can be added at a later date).
- Sports merchandising shop and ticket office
- Directors lounge holding up to 30 people.
- Sponsors bar holding up to 40 people.
- Players lounge holding up to 50 people.
- Separate administration offices and reception for three sports clubs.
- Concourse catering and toilet facilities, betting kiosks, first aid rooms and police facilities Outside the stadium, facilities include:
- One full size reinforced natural turf pitch for use by Doncaster Belles, Doncaster Rovers reserve team matches and Doncaster Lakers Academy games
- 500-seat covered ministand
- Six lane athletics track with double eight lane straights for regional events
- Floodlighting
- Football centre, including eight outdoor five-a-side pitches; three seven-aside pitches and one full size community natural grass pitch.
- 1,000 car parking spaces
