Safe Christmas Shopping at One New Change

The 2010 upgrade to Santa’s sled is the City of London’s newest shopping destination - One New Change.  Nestling perfectly behind St Paul’s cathedral, Land Securities’ latest development opened its doors just in time for Christmas shopping.

System Concepts worked with Land Securities providing fire, health and safety advice to the operations team during the transition from construction, and supporting the marketing team arranging the launch events.

Delivering a building of this size and complexity on time was testament to the considerable skill and experience of the Land Securities development team; and, working alongside the project managers and engineers was a unique opportunity to understand the design and function of the building and its systems.

In turn, this helped to create and implement safety management procedures which were completely tailored to the building and its occupants.  Specifically, this involved:

• carrying out and revising the fire risk assessment for the centre
• writing the emergency response procedures
• managing the fire strategy as the alarm and detection systems were being commissioned
• liaising with the fire and rescue authorities.

On top of all the frenetic building activity, the marketing team were busy planning a series of launch events for the opening fortnight.

Making the magical happen

As anyone who has ever planned and coordinated a Christmas party knows, it pays to be prepared.  The maxim “expect the best and plan for the worst” took on an entirely new dimension when the venue for said party was not even complete at the time of planning!

Advance preparation was the key, as was enthusiasm, competent advice, patience, inspiration, more patience, lateral thinking, some more planning and finally lots and lots of coffee!

Knowing the building proved invaluable in making the marketing ideas happen.  All the activities were planned, assessed and managed from cabbie breakfast to musical performances with several thousand shoppers, to the VIP party on the roof complete with roasted chestnuts.

It never rains but it pours

Once the euphoria of the launch wore off, it was time to manage the centre in earnest.  And in true British style, the best was yet to come, as winter announced itself loudly with both torrential rain on Remembrance Day and snow and ice in the first week of December.

Ice and snow of course increase the risk of slips and trips.  However, these can be controlled by implementing planned procedures such as:

• assessing the risk of slipping and falling in icy or snowy conditions and identifying appropriate control measures such as gritting
• monitoring weather conditions using the Met Office forecast (next day and 5 day)
• ensuring all key personnel know and understand the control measures and their role in implementing them.

Procedures which were not expected to be used until the colder months of January and February were implemented and visitors happily carried on with their Christmas shopping, as snow blanketed most of the country.

For more information and advice, please contact us.