Starlight Point, Heathrow Airport

Hughes and Salvidge were appointed to the role of Subcontractor for the dismantling of the Starlight Point modular office complex at Heathrow Airport.

Starlight Point was a purpose-built collection of 309 portacabins that were built to create an office space for several contractors working in and around Terminals 1, 2, and 3.

We worked with specialist subcontractors from our own supply chain to complete this project on time and to the client’s complete satisfaction.

Swain Lifting Solutions Ltd carried out the craneage works and provided qualified personnel for the lifting plan to be implemented.

Following on from the preparation works of surveys, designs, plans approvals and soft-strips we worked with Swain for the lifting dismantling and lifting elements of works.

The overall plan was to prepare and crane down 6 units per shift to be sat directly onto low loaders ready for transport to York, where the units were further processed by Wernick Refurbished Buildings, allowing the frames to be re-used in future modular cabins.

In order to achieve the 6 units per shift an external preparation gang worked ahead of the crane, removing external brackets, flashing and connections, working from large MEWPs.

There were internal connection brackets that needed to be removed, which were accessed by removing the internal cover strips as part of the soft strip works.

A 300-tonne crane was used working on full ballast, which had the reach and capacity to lift all units down from a single location.

Once the 6 units were lifted down each shift, the opening created was sheeted in order to minimise internal wind loadings on the structure as works progressed.

Each unit was lowered directing onto a waiting low loader, sheeted, and strapped ready for transport.

Swain liaised with Heathrow on the required lifting permits and carried out the necessary ground scans before siting the crane. All lifting was done on a contract lift basis.

We created and implemented a transport plan so as not to impact the airport, its operations, and passengers and staff accessing or exiting the terminals.

There were 308 movements over 50 working week days to complete this project. The units were generally 3m wide and sat 4.6m high on the transportation so close stakeholder communication was essential between the project and Heathrow roads and grounds.

Once the units had made their way to York, Wernick stripped the units down to the usable frames and processed the arising waste to maximise recycle value.