Octavius continues to reinforce its position as one of the country’s market leaders in the design and installation of Access for All (AfA) solutions, having already delivered circa 10% of all AfA schemes completed across the UK to date.
Octavius also currently has £65m of AfA projects in various stages of delivery, either recently entered into passenger service, under construction or in design development.
Isleworth and Walton on Thames projects have recently been entered into service, and Motspur Park, Barnes, Stoneleigh, Farnborough North and Grays are currently in construction. Three solutions are also in detailed design development for Wandsworth Town, Southend East and Chalkwell.
Rail Operations Director Matt Broxholme commented “The sheer scale and number of projects we have delivered in providing step free solutions has given us a rich source of learning, knowledge and experience that allows us to continually improve, raise the bar to remove risk and provide certainty of outcomes for our customers.
In my experience no two AfA projects are the same and often the construction phase, once the scope is finalised, is often the easiest. Positively managing the complex and different expectations of funders, local stakeholders, authorities and operators early in the process is essential. If not carefully and sensitively addressed, lack of clarity and agreement can become mission critical to meeting key outcomes.
An AfA project delivered 10 years ago is very different from the requirements demanded now. Today’s projects have a myriad of additional scope requirements, lift and footbridge types, increased security systems not to mention obtaining the energy required from local power networks. An AfA project now demands more design stage deliverables, in our early projects the requirement would be significantly less adding resource, time and cost into the process.
The advantage I believe we have in Octavius is the vast depth of knowledge and learning that we have acquired as an AfA market leader. This gives us a unique and specialist understanding of the drivers of cost, risk and certainty. Key process initiatives such as “Design to Cost” are introduced as we further develop and refine our own AFA Productivity Model to support industry focus on improving AfA programme performance through CP7.”
If you want to learn more about how Octavius can help reduce risk and guarantee the outcomes for your AfA Project please contact Lloyd.Jefferson-Smith@octavius.co.uk
