Huge steel beams providing the main building structure for Plymouth’s new Life Centre will start to be delivered to the construction site and lifted into place by a mobile crane this week.

Nine lorries will carry the building materials which will be used to make up the skeleton of the leisure facilities, next to Plymouth Argyle’s Football Ground. There will be approximately 220 tonnes of steel in total, delivered in dozens of sections.

Once the steel components are erected on-site in three parts, the structure will span nearly 50 metres in length and nine metres in height. The main contractor, Balfour Beatty estimates this part of the project will be finished in around three weeks.

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The main excavation and foundations for the Life Centre are now complete and this steel structure will sit over the new bowls area. Once the steel beams are in place, work will get underway on the rest of the building including the swimming and dive pools. The Life Centre will open to the public in the autumn next year.

John Bunker, Project Director for Balfour Beatty, said: "Lifting the steel structure into place marks a key milestone in the overall construction project, when people who’ve been watching the development take place, will see for the first time the building start to rise out of the ground. Until now our team has been busy working on excavating the whole site in front of the Mayflower Centre and preparing the foundations for the Life Centre."

(CD)