Cinema City opened in the mid-Sixties and ten years later it became the first ever Regional Film Theatre in England. In 2005 work started on a £3.5 million refurbishment project to equip the cinema with three screens, a café-bar and a courtyard.
The building work was complex as it incorporated the grade 1 listed building Suckling Hall, parts of which date back to the 1300s. The cinema also incorporates Stuart Hall, designed by Norwich Architect Edward Boardman and built in 1925.
When it came to pumping concrete into the building the major problem was to find a pump that would not block the busy St Andrews Street and yet still be able to reach over and into the building.
A Putzmeister M36 mobile concrete pump was chosen as the boom reached perfectly and the OSS feature (outriggers fully extended on the working side only) allowed the pump to set up in 5.2m. During the pour only one lane had to be closed and traffic management deployed to keep the traffic flowing smoothly.
The main contractor on the project was Bluestone PLC. However, it was Grandline Construction Ltd of Wisbech, Cambridgeshire, the sub-contractor responsible for the internal floors and walls, who hired the pump.
As well as using the M36, Grandline used the mobile line pump and M24 mobile concrete pump on earlier phases of the contract.
The outrigger width was not an issue with these pumps as they have a smaller footprint. These pumps were used to pump concrete through a ground line into the basement area, about five metres below street level, and the ground floor level.
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Pump: M36 OSS
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Customer: Grandline Construction Ltd
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Site: Cinema City, Norwich
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Concrete Supplier: TBL Concrete
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Date: Autumn 2005