Green Lane Special School

Over the last decade, Twinfix have installed 10 canopies on five separate occasions at Green Lane Community Special School, part of Woolston Learning Village in Holes Lane, Warrington.

The initial project involved fitting a 35m long 2m wide walkway on this school, and another 32m walkway at the adjacent school on the site, both designed to provide under cover access between car drop-off and the school buildings. Twinfix were approached by main contractor ISG Construction Ltd from Salford to design, manufacture and install these as part of their overall task to refurbish the old Woolston High School campus back in 2014.

Since the original project, Twinfix have been invited back on four more occasions by Head Teacher, Paul King to install further canopies. Most recently a free-standing mono-pitch canopy spanning 80 square-metres.

All the canopies designed, manufactured and installed by Twinfix have aluminium frames powder coated in blue RAL 5010. As this metal doesn’t rust in use, they will keep their good looks throughout their long life. The roof glazing consists of Twinfix Multi-Link-Panels NF fitted with tough 25mm opal multiwall polycarbonate. The NF denotes that these panels conform to the HSE’s recommended drop test ACR[M]001:2019, as recommended by HSG33. This is particularly important where access could be gained to the overhead glazing.

Vertical glazing was included in the design of the walkways at the school which provides additional weather protection, while the canopies providing shelter in play areas were fitted with post protectors to guard the children from bumps and bangs.

Paul King Head Teacher explains: “We cater for children from 3 to 18 years old. They’re not like children in a main-stream school, they’re vulnerable and they all have special needs. We wanted them to have covered access to the outside throughout the year and these canopies have enabled us to achieve this. Our children have to be taught how to play and having such large, safe protected outside areas gives us the space to do this. All the areas had to be closed off from pupils for installing the footings for the post supports and again for the actual build – but Twinfix were very accurate in the timings they gave us and they were finished within their promised timeframe. “