The UK is seeing more extreme weather events as a result of climate change.
The latest analysis of our climate, published in July 2021, shows annual temperatures are on the up – and that the UK is also seeing more rainfall and sunshine.
In February 2021, Storms Ciara and Dennis hit the UK only one week apart and 12 months on the country is again experiencing the effects of some of the most serious storms in years.
Storm Eunice prompted a red weather warning from the Met Office just days after Storm Dudley hit, leaving some parts of the country without power.
Staying Safe in a Storm
It’s becoming clear the impact of the changes we are experiencing in the weather is affecting daily life.
In 2021, Liz Bentley, chief executive of the Royal Meteorological Society, said the extremes of heat and rainfall would bring many problems if action isn’t taken.
Ensuring infrastructure in the UK is built to tolerate the sort of storms that are battering the country more frequently, and strengthening flood defences, is crucial.
The health and safety of our customers is at the heart of our design and build processes at Broxap Street Furniture.
Our engineers follow an embedded design philosophy of creating products that are safe, strong and secure and which are made from long-life durable materials.
With 75 years in businesses behind us, and more than two decades in the shelters, canopies and walkways market, this ethos has never changed – in fact, as this extreme weather change continues, it is even more relevant to the performance of our products.
Broxap’s Design Life Guarantee
To provide assurances that reasonable skill and care is applied to the production of our shelters, walkways and canopies, Eurocode standards are applied to all bespoke designs.
The standards consider the basis of structural design (BS EN 1990:2002+A1:2005); the design of steel structures (BS EN 1993-1-1:2005 Eurocode 3); snow loads (BS EN 1991-1-3:2003 Eurocode 1) and wind actions (BS EN 1991-1-4:2005 Eurocode 1).
Our fabricated steelwork is hot-dip galvanised (BS EN ISO 1461:2009) and these processes, based on the most relevant weather data from the last 50 years, gives a 50-year design life for our bespoke structures. The same Eurocodes are considered in all pre-designed shelter products also.
Our commitment to such stringent safety standards not only benefits current and future customers, but also clients who may need to undertake a retrospective building regulation application. They can be safe in the knowledge that these engineering standards are already embedded in the product supplied by Broxap.
Climate Change
As a responsible manufacturer, as well as designing shelters to comply with these Eurocodes, we are taking steps to reduce our carbon footprint to try and address the larger climate change issue.
Unnecessary powder coating has been eliminated from our production processes.
As well as less wastage, switching from wet painting some products to powder coating them reduces the release of volatile organic compounds which may harm the environment.
We are rolling out more virtual site surveys, to cut down the number of journeys we make, and our fork lift truck fleet is going electric.
As part of a package of improvements and investments at our in-house manufacturing site, we are increasing energy efficiency with fibre laser cutting rather than the use of CO2 lasers.
And we are reusing, refurbishing and recycling materials, products and packaging wherever possible, as well as cutting down our use of plastic wrapping.
To find out more about our sustainability initiatives, read our blog here.
To discuss the design life guarantee for your bespoke shelter product call us today.