The sky's the limit for the St Austell town centre £75 million regeneration scheme, as the first skyscraper crane is moved onto the site to help with construction this week.

Excavation work has continued at a pace on the project which is a joint venture between the South West of England Regional Development Agency (RDA), which is investing £31.5m in the project, and developers David McLean Developments.

The crane, which is 40 metres high, has been erected next to the cinema block on the development and will be used to move the building’s steel frame into place – this is likely to start next month and take up to eight weeks.

-- Advertisement --

The crane will serve a variety of purposes and be used for the main lifting and distribution on-site. A further crane is due to be set up for the scheme at the beginning of April and the third crane around three weeks later.

Hundreds of reinforced concrete piles, some driven down to 18 metres into the ground have been completed for the foundations - ahead of schedule. At the moment, the team from contractors Sir Robert McAlpine are working on the sub-structure including capping the piles. The main concrete frame for the underground car park is expected to begin after Easter.

More than 200 people will be employed during the construction phase and, once completed, the scheme will employ up to 700 people.

In total 95,000 tonnes of material – equivalent to filling 18 Olympic size swimming pools – have been excavated from the five-acre site by the contractor. The north section of the basement car park excavation will be completed by the end of the month.

(JM)