The £6 million refurbishment of Barnsley’s landmark Town Hall includes Marshall-Tufflex’s Twin Plus, a cable management system capable of handling a wide variety and large quantity of power and data cabling.
The Town Hall houses newly refurbished office accommodation, meeting rooms and the council chamber. A local history museum and archive centre within the four-storey 1930s civic building will open to the public next year.
A flexible trunking system was therefore needed for the multi-purpose building where services such as telephones, IT equipment, fire and burglar alarms, CCTV, door access and security systems required differing amounts of power and data provision. Rather than install two or three different sized trunking systems to accommodate these services, CAT 6 compliant Twin Plus, an all-in-one cable management system, was specified.
For electrical and mechanical engineers, NPS Barnsley, the most challenging aspect was installing the large quantity of trunking that the refurbishment demanded: “We fitted hundreds of metres of trunking,” said Paul Derbyshire of NPS Barnsley. “If we had to install two or more different sized trunking systems it would have been far more complicated. Marshall-Tufflex’s product was chosen for its flexibility. It has gone in everywhere at ceiling height and down walls to sockets as required.”
Twin Plus was surface mounted and therefore looks also counted: “Twin Plus passed aesthetically as well as functionally and we have had no problems installing it, despite the quantity,” added Mr Derbyshire.
PVC-U Twin Plus was supplied by Edmundson Electrical, Barnsley. It is an integral cable management solution with a large bend radius for optimum performance. It has been developed by Marshall-Tufflex for buildings with complex needs, such as Barnsley Town Hall.
The restoration of Barnsley Town Hall building has been a massive undertaking, with it being closed for more than a year and hidden under scaffolding while repairs to the exterior and interior were carried out by main contractor Graham Construction Ltd. Interior work required a complete strip-back and re-fit. All work was completed in consultation with English Heritage.