Build your own works yard at Poole

Dan Jenkins told MJ that the company has been forced to move its site because the new lifting bridge at the UK port of Poole meant that the water space was needed for navigation.

The company thrashed out a million pound deal with the local harbour commissioners but that was just for the land itself.

“Essentially, it was just a piece of waste ground with a very shallow approach, but because we own our own construction vessels we put them to work”, said Mr Jenkins. Over 5,000 cu/m of material was moved by the company’s own backhoe dredger Doreen Dorward, giving Jenkins a serviceable 3m below chart datum.

Then the company purchased and installed a steel pontoon system to create about 100m of quayside, secured in position using ten 14m long tubular piles. Jenkins’ again used Doreen Dorward to do the piling with the company’s own 50 ton crawler crane sitting on its deck.

Since the site had a rock revetment, another job was to install a crane platform which would allow the boom to extend over the rocks. This had to handle 75 tons of pressure, that is, 50 tons of crawler holding a 25 ton load.

There were other issues too. For example, it was found that access wasn’t straightforward as the company’s waterside area was actually on the port estate, inside the customs bonded area. “The problem was that potentially anyone coming on and off the site might have to go through customs!”, explained Mr Jenkins. In the end Jenkins moved the port security fence, giving the company a dedicated gate and making logistics connections on the land side easier.

Jenkins also had to surface all of the hard standing for the open storage, and gain two fairly sizeable workshops for the engineering and dry storage areas.

But the advantages do add up. One is that vessels no longer have to navigate a tight narrow channel. The new site has much better direct access to the sea and the delays are minimised. “Now, if a barge arrives at 2:00 in the morning, it doesn’t have to wait around for the first scheduled bridge lift at 5:30,” says Mr Jenkins. He added that the turning basin for the ferries is adjacent to the Jenkins’ berths, so the company now has room to manoeuvre the tugs with larger barges in tow.

There’s also a new office. Mr Jenkins explained that before the company office was a mile and a half up the road. The new office on site helps everyone to see what’s happening outside while allowing a good view of the weather too.