The 'topping off' celebration took place today of a £1 million extension to a Gloucester dental surgery.

Punchline was among those in attendance this morning at the expanding St James Dental in Quedgeley to mark the celebration of the highest part of the building being reached and being sealed against the elements.

The two-storey extension will provide four new surgery treatment rooms along with additional staff facilities.

The main contractors are Gloucester-based Barnwood Ltd who started work on the project last August and are on schedule to complete the extension by June. About 15 workers have been on site each day.

Practice owner David Mathewson said: "St James Dental in Quedgeley, a family-owned dental practice with over 40 staff, is immensely proud to have cared for its local community for over 38 years.

"As Quedgeley and Hardwicke has expanded so has the dental practice and this year sees the practice complete its fourth expansion. It has always been important to us that we employ local skills and businesses to facilitate that expansion so we were delighted to use Roberts Limbrick Architects, Ward Williams Associates Quantity Surveyors and the Barnwood Group.

David Marks, associate partner of quantity surveyors Ward Williams Associates, said: "It's on programme, on budget and with a really high specification finish. It's a restrictive site, due to the neighbouring surgery and the adjacent Tesco superstore."

Steve Dixon, site manager for Barnwood Construction, said: "It's been a particularly difficult build for Barnwood, particularly with the weather and that the project itself is confined within a very small footprint which has made logistics particularly difficult.

"Also we're alongside a live car park which feeds all of the St James practices which has been another problem with us dealing with the public on a daily basis. But we are on schedule to finish by the end of may as per our programme. Everything is going well now. This building has got a particularly different type of roof on it in terms of shape."

Barnwood contracts manager Robert Clarke added: "The construction of St James Dental Practice extension has presented a few interesting challenges, most notable being the very tight site constraint. Just about every square metre of available land has been built on with just sufficient space for scaffolding.

"We arranged for the adjacent public footpath to be closed for the duration of the project so that it could be used for material storage and access to the site.

"The dental practice has continued to operate at full capacity whilst the works are being carried out. Our access into the site is shared with several other health and social care providers, all using the same small car park. Co-ordination between trades and a very well managed site has been key to the successful delivery of this project."

The decision to expand the surgery dates back to 2017 when it became apparent that the practice was becoming ever busier and if it was to continue to provide for the increasing local population, the practice would need to grow and adapt. However, plans were initially knocked off course by Brexit and then the pandemic..