Royal Festival Hall fire protection by Notifier

Notifier Fire Systems Engineered Systems Distributor, Advanced Fire Systems, selected to provide full fire safety protection at the Grade 1 listed Royal Festival Hall.

Leading Notifier Fire Systems Engineered Systems Distributor (ESD), Advanced Fire Systems, has been selected to provide full fire safety protection as part of the new £70 million refurbishment programme at the Grade 1 listed Royal Festival Hall, one of London's premier concert venues.

The contract, worth £700,000, includes the provision of comprehensive fire detection and voice alarm equipment for both the Royal Festival Hall and the new adjacent Extension Building, which houses both office staff and technical facilities.

The Royal Festival Hall, opened in 1951, forms the centrepiece of the prestigious South Bank Centre (SBC) arts complex and includes a 2,900 seat auditorium, providing concerts by the world's finest orchestras and hosts rock, jazz, dance and world music performers.

The major two-year renovation programme is currently well underway and the Hall is due to re-open in June 2007.

Following a full tender process, major contractor, ISG InteriorExterior selected Advanced Fire Systems to install Notifier life safety equipment, including a network of five ID3000 fully addressable alarm panels with more than 1,000 detectors, together with a network-based repeater, four large voice alarm racks and UniNet-ID graphics-based alarm reporting system.

Easy-to-use solution "We required a robust, technically advanced solution from a proven stable for this high profile development, which includes complex cause and effect programmes," confirms Colin Restall, head of security and health and safety, SBC.

"Notifier and Advanced Fire Systems provided the ideal combination of leading-edge technology and track record of success to meet our demanding requirements within the installation constraints of the Royal Festival Hall's listed status".

For his part, Brett Ennals, UK and Ireland sales manager, Notifier Fire Systems, believes that, "the ID3000 intelligent fire alarm panel is perfectly suited to large public facilities such as the Royal Festival Hall, as its advanced, third party-certified, engineered system design not only offers a high level of functionality but is easy to install, programme and operate".

""Similarly, the Notifier UniNet-ID incorporates next-generation technology to provide integrated fire, security, CCTV and access control across the whole Royal Festival Hall site".

Voice Alarm Protection The development also includes full voice alarm protection for the public access foyer areas, which annually attract some 2.5 million visitors from around the world".

"Voice messaging has become an increasingly important as part of an efficient evacuation strategy," confirms Paul Hodge of Advanced Fire Solutions.

"In response, the Notifier solution incorporates the recently-developed ID PAVA system as part of a comprehensive fire detection and alarm solution.

"As a result of the need to preserve the building's Grade 1 listed status, to the casual eye much of the original building will look much as before," says Hodge.

"However, a significant - if unseen - benefit is that the public and staff alike will be protected by the very latest in life safety systems.".

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