Makers have it sorted!

Makers are undertaking a 20,000m2 profile roof waterproofing project at the Royal Mail Bristol, Mail Centre at Filton. This 6-month project which has just started will see the existing metal deck be treated for corrosion and then have Alumasc’s Metcote system applied to the main roof area with gutters being treated using Alumasc Caltech QS and roof lights being protected using their Clearglaze products.

The Filton Mail Centre sorts over 30,000 parcels and mail per hour before being placed into “yorkies” 6ft metal cages and packed off to respective delivery offices. The Bristol Sorting office moved to Filton in 1997 as its current building was unsuitable for the demands of modern postal systems due to the sheer volumes involved.

In 1952/3 the Bristol sorting office was dealing with 75,000 items per week whereas now current processing sees that volume in 2 hours with the facility handling up to 2.5 million items per week. The Royal Mail has a number of Mail Centres throughout the country and offering a single price go anywhere postal service to 29 million households across the UK requires an effective logistic service.

The operation consists of feeding thousands of items collected through the network of post-boxes and post offices onto a conveyor belt with sorts out via postcodes and collates them into different streets which are then bundled into individual postal staff workstations. The final process involves sorting by hand to determine the most efficient delivery route before being redirected to the respective delivery offices.

The centre operate 24/7 and so it is critical given the amount of parcels and letters it deals with that they are kept from the ravages of the weather. The Filton Mail Centre is the largest in the West Country serving all Bristol postcodes as well as some in Gloucestershire, Wiltshire and Somerset.

“ The scale can be quite daunting but broken down into its respective components and operations should allow us to work systematically whilst not disturbing the ongoing activities below.”

Willy McCrimmon Regional Construction Director Makers Construction

“ The roof has scale in both area and monetary value, but we are used to dealing with sizeable roofing projects and with a fair wind and our site team we will be able to “deliver” the project and ensure that the roof is warrantied for the next 20 years!”

Simon Lamb Managing Director Makers Construction.