Sustainability and safety In the heart of London

It comprises a landmark 37-storey tower comprising 284 new homes, a new local park and public leisure centre and is one of the first buildings to achieve level 4 of the Code for Sustainable Homes.

The client for this striking stone, glass and metal building is Southwark Council who are building it through their regeneration partner and main contractor, Lend Lease.

Lend Lease put safety at the heart of their operation, both during construction and subsequent operational maintenance.

Historically, risers have posed significant health and safety risks so to reduce the risk of falls from height of people, tools and materials throughout installation, operation and maintenance of the building, Lend Lease specify the use of DuraSlab for the ultimate safety solution.

Lend Lease have strict safety procedures where DuraSlab more than satisfies their requirements and is quick and easy to install.

The product used is a solid Fibre Reinforced Plastic (FRP) panel, DuraSlab Moulded Type43 Light, which prevents debris dropping through, improving safety compared to the traditional open mesh grating.

Dura Slab comes in a variety of sizes and load bearing capacities and can be installed following formwork removal as the risers form part of the general floor plate.

The benefits of the Dura Slab system are:

• Elimination of the risk of falls from height of people, tools and materials.

• Reduction in manual handling due to its lesser weight than metal checker plate.

• Easily adaptable on site when services have to be installed.

• Elimination of hot works.

• Protection of the riser for follow-on trades and building operation and maintenance.

David Rhodes, project manager for One The Elephant explained: "Compared to metal plate, Dura Slab allows no debris to pass through, is light weight, flexibly installed, and has a very high shear and flexural capacity, so working loads are inherently far removed from failure loads.”