The Arkell Community Centre is a new purpose built building serving the local population of Nailsworth in Gloucestershire. The community centre has several rooms which can be hired to hold events from Tia Chi courses and advice sessions, to Brownie meetings to serve the local community. The contemporary building has two large meetings rooms the largest of which has serving hatches into the commercial catering standard kitchen.

The project was managed by Snape Construction. Based in Cheltenham they are one of the leading contractors in the Gloucestershire region. Stan Price the senior quantity surveyor on the project contacted Hopkins to design the commercial catering kitchen.

Hopkins commercial kitchen design team attended site to conduct a thorough site survey. The kitchen design was produced by Hopkins to best suit the requirements of the client. The community centre was going to be used for various different functions and therefore the kitchen equipment had to be able to cope with the demand of production.

Hopkins delivered and installed all commercial kitchen equipment such as an electric salamander & 6 burner cooker, electric hot cupboard & toaster, commercial microwaves & dishwashers, upright fridge freezer, water boilers, soup kettle, insectocuters and various stainless steel fabrication such as s/s prep tabling, s/s dishwash tabling, s/s cupboards, s/s double bowl sink unit.

In addition Hopkins also designed, delivered and installed an extraction canopy for the catering area to fully comply with ventilation requirements DW172, the required ventilation guidelines set out by the Heating and Ventilating Contractors Association. (HVCA).

On completion of the kitchen Hopkins project management team completed the handover of the project to the client with a walk round inspection of the site. On handover a site pack was produced and left with the client consisting of all the catering equipment manuals and full machine details.

After a successful handover and inspection Hopkins also arranged a day for all the kitchen staff to receive training on all the main cooking equipment within the kitchen area.