Client: St Martins Property Investments Ltd
Main contractor: Bovis Lend Lease
Type of works: design and installation of a barrier to protect ramp edges and carry lighting supports.

The new £200 million, 800,000 square feet Croydon Centrale shopping centre is built on a sloping site. This meant that the brand new, 950 space, shoppers’ car park had to be fitted in around the retail areas and left a relatively small area in which to fit the access ramps. Planning requirements meant that a towering central core would have had too much impact on neighbouring residential dwellings, so an intricate spiral design was developed that fitted into the contours of the site.

Bovis Lend Lease went straight to barrier specialists Berry Systems to design a barrier that would not only protect the edges of the ramps but would also carry the lighting supports and some electrical cabling. Each section was curved to fit an exact location, so all the barrier sections were carefully numbered during manufacture and had to be assembled in precisely the right order on site.

Berry Systems was asked to design and install a barrier that would not only protect the edges of the ramps but would also carry the lighting supports and some electrical cabling. It had to be manufactured to exactly match the geometry of the ramps which were not a consistent radius as they had to fit the slope of the site. 800m of Berry Beam was mounted onto RB1 spring steel buffers. Solid steel removable plates were fitted below the Berry Beam for lighting cable protection and to block any water splash. A handrail and mesh infill at 1,100mm height was added on all the barrier on the internal radius of the spiral.