Heritage and regeneration experts Focus Consultants has won a contract to act as buildings project manager on a £3 million project to conserve and repair England’s second oldest cathedral.
A team from Nottingham-based Focus, which has branches in London, Leicester, Lincoln and Boston, has been appointed as building project managers and quantity surveyors on the scheme at Rochester Cathedral, which was founded in 604.
The project will introduce new visitor displays in the crypt and library, whilst improving access to these atmospheric spaces, and showcase the cathedral’s jewel in the crown - the Textus Roffensis. Older and possibly more significant than the Magna Carta, the manuscript is currently locked away in the archives of Medway Council but the project will give this important piece of history a new home.
“This is an incredibly sensitive project, bearing in mind that Rochester Cathedral is a place of worship and the second oldest cathedral in the country,” said Steven Fletcher, partner at Focus Consultants.
“Our project manager Ellie Clarke and the whole Focus team are honoured to be conserving it for future generations and helping the public enjoy such a fascinating building. The 12th Century Textus Roffensis is a priceless and irreplaceable manuscript, soon to take its place in the cathedral’s treasury.”
The Rochester Cathedral project is the latest heritage and ecclesiastical scheme spearheaded by Focus Consultants, based at Phoenix Business Park, Nottingham. Others include Lincoln Cathedral Old Palace, St. Margarets in Bradford, Nottingham’s St. Martha’s the Housewife and Greyfriars Tower, King’s Lynn.
Design work is now underway on the Rochester Cathedral scheme, which has received Heritage Lottery Funding. Work is expected to start on site during the summer of 2013, with completion expected in March 2014.
Focus Consultants specialises in creative approaches to securing funding packages and delivering high quality projects across the Midlands and the UK. Focus has secured more than £800 million of grant assistance, and delivered more than £1 billion of projects and programmes since 1994.
www.focus-consultants.co.uk
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