Saffron Walden County High School, Saffron Walden

Saffron Walden County High School is an outstanding academy with over 2100 students on roll. Having already installed a large canopy in 2016 to provide a covered area for students to eat, increasing student numbers put increasing pressure on the existing catering facilities and by 2018 the school were desperate for additional dining capacity.

Attention turned to the school’s derelict open-air swimming pool – a dangerous and unattractive area located between the sports hall and tennis courts. Archer Building Consultancy, a long-term provider of the premises services to the trust, proposed and delivered a scheme which involved emptying and removing the swimming pool along with the associated buildings and equipment, filling and levelling the area and installing a food pod and large covered seating area.

Streetspace were contracted to design, manufacture and install a huge 25.0 x 15.0 m Triton Maxx clearspan polycarbonate roof canopy. With a symmetric form, the canopy provides covered seating for over 200 students as well as plenty of queuing space for the remote servery station. Integrated gutters and downpipes are connected to surface water drainage to help keep the area as dry as possible.

A canopy of this size has many possible uses in addition to dining and social space – it could be used for assemblies, sports activities or as a parent waiting area, creating a truly multifunctional space. Windbreak cladding can be added as required in exposed locations to enable year-round use.