Known across the globe, Cadbury World is a unique attraction visited by hundreds of thousands of visitors every year.
Since 1990, the site, in Bournville, Birmingham, has told the fabulous history of an iconic, world-renowned brand, taking people on a sensation-packed journey through chocolate.
With the numbers of visitors ever increasing, it is important that Cadbury World is a safe environment for guests and for staff too.
And so when it comes to fire doors, Merlin Entertainments, the company behind Cadbury World, turns to Fire Door Specialists.
Tim Gimbert is the Operations Manager at Cadbury World. He has been entrusting FDS with fire door safety work for about three years, and is so pleased with what we do that he continues to use us on an ongoing basis.
Tim says: “It all came about with regards to doing a fire engineering survey which made us realise that we had a lot of doors. Some needed replacing, while others needed to be updated and improved.”
After a search for a company that could do the work, Tim got in touch with Kieran Percival, a director at Fire Door Specialists, who with his team went into Cadbury World to assess what might be needed.
The work was scoped out, with a lot of measuring and calculations and audits being done, and then, because of the scale of the task, priorities were set.
Since then, more than 100 individual doors, including internal and external, have been replaced.
Tim continues: “It was quite complex and difficult. And when you have a public venue like Cadbury World, the challenge is always around getting the works done outside of guest hours. So there’s lots of early starts and a few late finishes.”
FDS managed the work schedules, with installation experts going in outside of opening hours in order to minimise any potential issues. And because our teams are diligent, there was little evidence to show they had even been on site.
For Tim, that’s perfect. “There was no hindrance to us operationally,” he says, “thanks to the brilliant delivery from the FDS team. It’s absolutely critical that this is done right. What you can’t do is start having like, half a door, when the public – or staff – are around.
“Not only do you need a place to be looking neat and tidy, you need it to be safe, and ultimately you need to keep the fire integrity score in place. I am grateful that FDS was flexible in its approach.”
Communication has been key to the successful delivery of the work. Tim has been able to contact the right people at the right time so that all stakeholders were confident that they were aware of what was happening and when.
A lot of conversations took place prior to FDS being on site so that the project would run as smoothly as possible.
Tim adds: “We certainly see FDS as one of our absolutely tried and tested third-party contractors that we will have no reservations revisiting. We have been able to pick up the phone or send an email and know that you have the confidence FDS knows what it is doing.
“I know that if there’s anything I need that’s related to fire doors or doors, , it’s one phone call. It’s not half an hour searching Google and making 10 phone calls. It is literally one phone call. And for someone like me who’s dealing with all kinds of things all day long, there’s a lot of value in that.”
Kieran Percival, Director, Fire Door Specialists added, “I am delighted that Cadbury World trusts us, both our expertise and our ability to carry out the work on site with no interruption to day-to-day operations. We are very proud of our work for this amazing brand, and extremely fascinating site.”