Thanks to being engineered off-site, the nursery was delivered and installed while the school remained fully open throughout.

Following a local government challenge, Fife Council was exploring ways to build high-quality nurseries to meet new educational targets, and was keen to investigate modular construction as a solution for projects with very tight timescales. Lynburn Primary School in Dunfermline was in need of a large nursery quickly and Portakabin was called in to deliver a solution.

Diarmid McLachlan, lead architect at Fife Council, said: “We have a lot of experience of designing nursery buildings that work well for the Scottish education system, and the Portakabin modular building system offered the adaptability and quality we were looking for.”

Portakabin worked with Fife Council to engineer a building that fulfilled all of the school’s requirements; a dedicated room for younger children, and two spacious areas for three-to-four year olds. There is also a dining area, a separate community meeting room, kitchen and office.

Alan Hyde, business development manager for Portakabin, added: “We provided a complete turn-key service, from helping the school gain planning permission, through to installing all foundations and constructing and fitting out the building. We also installed a CCTV access system, outdoor fencing, and playground.”

Groundworks and site preparation were completed while the units, which were manufactured offsite. Twenty-one modules were delivered and installed to form a weathertight and secure building within four days. Fitting out the interiors followed shortly afterwards and was completed in just three months, allowing the nursery to be operational for the start of the new term in August.

Lynburn Primary was delighted with the way Portakabin and Fife Council Property Services managed the project, which ran to schedule throughout. The clean, self-contained nature of modular meant Portakabin was able to separate the site completely from the operational school. It meant the school could remain open throughout the construction process, with no impact on the children’s education or safety.