SNOWDON Engineers brave strong winds, sub-zero temperatures and sleet in July to build Wales’s highest tourist attraction.
But despite the wintry weather, construction work on Hafod Eryri, the £8.3 million project to replace the café on the summit of Snowdon with a new building, is only a few days behind schedule.
Chris Hogan, the project’s site manager, said that the steel frame of the building had been completed and the next step was to put the roof on. But the crane needed to lift the steel joists into place is not yet on site. Mr Hogan said: “It is too heavy to track up the railway line and the Health and Safety Executive is against flying it up.” The solution has proved to be to dismantle it to be taken by train up the mountain and reassembled on site.
The building is being built by Carillion, whose regional director, Meirion Evans, said that the engineers were working twelve-hour days, seven days a week: “We expect to get the building completed by autumn. Work will then be suspended until next spring when we will fit the building out ready for opening.” The new complex, which will include a new railway terminus, must be completed by next summer to qualify for European funding.