Project brief
New Street is the busiest railway station in the United Kingdom outside London and the sixth-busiest station in the UK for interchange purposes. Over 40.1 million people use the station each year, 87% of whom are passengers. With almost 4 million passengers changing trains at the station annually, it is also by far the busiest rail hub outside London.
The original New Street station was built in the Victorian era. This was demolished and replaced by the current station in the 1960s. A £550m redevelopment scheme named Gateway Plus was awarded full funding by the British government in February 2008, and work began on the development of a stunning new 21st Century transport hub.
A1 Flue Systems were initially contracted by W S Atkins to offer technical assistance to establish the feasibility of providing a large flue dilution system to serve the existing boilers.
Our design
The existing installation was originally connected to a large chimney which ran through the centre of “Stephenson Tower “, a large 1960’s tower block adjacent to the station itself some 63m tall. As part of the redevelopment work to the station, Stephenson Tower was going to be demolished, and so alternative arrangements had to be determined for the boiler flues.
This is a £550m long term project and due to the size of the boiler plant and its location in the city, the flues we have currently installed are only a temporary solution. We hope that eventually we will be appointed to install a permanent large flue dilution system once re-development works reach the appropriate point.
As we were acting as principle contactor for this work, we also carried out modifications to the controls system, provided our own access and fully commissioned the new system providing a “turn-key” package which was closely overseen by MACE.
Testimonial
“The location of a chimney system that served such a huge development within a building that was due for demolition presented developers with quite a conundrum. Particularly as the extraction of gases through the heating and ventilation flues could not be interrupted for any lengthy period of time. A1 Flue Systems visited the site and completed a full survey which helped the architectural, project management and construction teams during the design and planning phase of the project. Once their specifications were agreed, they manufactured everything in the UK to a very high standard and also delivered on all aspects in their proposal on time and to budget.”
