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Duel for flight centre
00:00 28 Jun 2000
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by Glenda Thisdell
Two companies are being paid to compete in a 120-day contest for the contract to design Scotland's new £40m air traffic control centre.
National Air Traffic Services has asked both Gibb Developments and Building Design Partnership to develop designs for a new centre to be built alongside the existing one at Prestwick, Ayrshire. The two companies have been given four months to present fully costed design proposals for the building and its services and NATS will retain the rights to all ideas.
"We expect to more than recover the up front cost [to the two designers] through operational savings," said a spokesman. The winning team will have to incorporate the best features from both designs. "For example one team might come up with a better air conditioning system and we are paying for the option of including it," he said.
The New Scottish Centre, which will have an operational life of at least 40 years, has been commissioned as part of NATS' long-term strategy for air traffic control in the UK to provide two area control centres. The first centre was the recently completed facility at Swanwick in Hampshire. The Prestwick centre will be the second.
The NSC is likely to cover between 15,000m2 and 18,000m2 of total floor space and will manage air traffic through 650,000 square miles of airspace over Scotland and the eastern North Atlantic. Construction contracts will be invited later in the year.
Prestwick's existing centre handled 823,000 flights in 1999 but this figure is expected to increase by up to 7% per year.
Two companies are being paid to compete in a 120-day contest for the contract to design Scotland's new £40m air traffic control centre.
National Air Traffic Services has asked both Gibb Developments and Building Design Partnership to develop designs for a new centre to be built alongside the existing one at Prestwick, Ayrshire. The two companies have been given four months to present fully costed design proposals for the building and its services and NATS will retain the rights to all ideas.
"We expect to more than recover the up front cost [to the two designers] through operational savings," said a spokesman. The winning team will have to incorporate the best features from both designs. "For example one team might come up with a better air conditioning system and we are paying for the option of including it," he said.
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The New Scottish Centre, which will have an operational life of at least 40 years, has been commissioned as part of NATS' long-term strategy for air traffic control in the UK to provide two area control centres. The first centre was the recently completed facility at Swanwick in Hampshire. The Prestwick centre will be the second.
The NSC is likely to cover between 15,000m2 and 18,000m2 of total floor space and will manage air traffic through 650,000 square miles of airspace over Scotland and the eastern North Atlantic. Construction contracts will be invited later in the year.
Prestwick's existing centre handled 823,000 flights in 1999 but this figure is expected to increase by up to 7% per year.
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