Kier has celebrated reaching the highest point of construction at the Hallenbeagle Refuse Transfer Station in Cornwall with a traditional topping out ceremony.
The completed project will measure 13m in height and will provide purpose-built recycling and waste management facilities for Cornwall, making use of vacant industrial land at the Cornwall Business Park. It will support Cornwall’s new household waste and recycling collection service that will allow residents to recycle their food waste, aiming to increase the county’s recycling rate. The facilities will also accept some waste and recycling from local businesses.
The new facilities will sort and handle Cornwall’s household waste and recycling on behalf of Cornwall Council and will be run by SUEZ recycling and recovery UK. Construction started in October 2023 and the buildings are taking shape, with the office block completed and the covered bale store internal works progressing well. Throughout the build, a focus on the surrounding community has been an important part of the project. Kier is working with its local supply chain to deliver the scheme and the team has also engaged with schools in the area.
Students from Treleigh School have had the opportunity to visit the site, learn about recycling and see behind the scenes of a live construction site. This experience provided an effective insight into a number of career options for young people based in Cornwall.
The site team also ran a hoarding painting competition, asking students from the local area to design recycling themed posters to decorate the hoarding. The students with the top three entries were invited to the Topping Out event and as part of the ceremony, the winner was announced.
The ceremony itself included the tradition of placing a tree on the roof to commemorate reaching this construction milestone. Following the ceremony, the viburnum tree will be donated to Portreath School as part of the prize for the hoarding artwork and will be planted at the school where students can enjoy it for years to come.
The winning student from Portreath school said:
"I loved my visit to the site and learning about recycling and where it all goes. This was my first visit to a building site, and I got to see how they build things, it was fun."
"It is wonderful to see how well this project is progressing. The team collaboration from SUEZ and Cornwall Council representatives, our consultants and supply chain has been outstanding. Collectively we are delivering a building of exceptional quality that will assist Cornwall to maximise recycling, benefiting the local environment for decades to come."
Doug Lloyd, regional director of Kier Construction Western & Wales
"It’s great to see this vital infrastructure project reach this important milestone. The development of this facility will provide vital waste management and processing services for residents of Cornwall for generations to come. I am very much looking forward to the next stage of the project, which will see the internal fit out of the processing plant, and the fast-approaching operational go-live date later this year."
Mark Hillson, PFI General Manager for Cornwall and Devon at SUEZ
"It’s fantastic to see this facility is taking shape.Since we started rolling out the new food waste, rubbish and recycling collections, our recycling rate has already increased to 44% and we anticipate this will rise above 50% now all areas across Cornwall are using the service.
The new waste management facility at Hallenbeagle will enable us to sort more recyclable materials before they are sent off to start a new lease of life."
Councillor Carol Mould, Portfolio Holder for Neighbourhoods at Cornwall Council
