European bathroom pod market leader RB Farquhar has announced its first two contracts for Premier Inn, the UK’s biggest hotel brand.
Another RB Farquhar bathroom pod for the hotel market rolls off the production lines
Both contracts, which have a combined value of around £950k, are being built to standard Premier Inn specifications; the first is for 157 floorless bathroom pods for the new Premier Inn hotel at Manchester Airport; the second, a mix of floored and floorless pods, is for 140 pods for High Fishergate, Doncaster.
The main contractor for both projects is Multibuild Ltd. The contracts were awarded following a factory visit earlier this year to RB Farquhar’s bathroom pod assembly plant in Chomutov, Czech Republic, by the Premier Inn design team and the Multibuild construction team, at which final pod specifications were agreed and production quality standards inspected.
The Manchester airport hotel is being built to a tight 52 week programme, and Multibuild has altered its construction programme to take advantage of the time-saving elements of prefabricated bathroom pods.
Originally each deck was to have been finished sequentially, but the plan is now to leave the construction of the central reception area to last, and to crane in the 1.2 tonne pods through the roof and down the central stair core, before wheeling them into their final position on each floor. Once all the pods have been craned into the building, the roof will then be secured.
Multibuild site manager Steve Ashton says that using pods is essential to the company achieving its 52 week construction and fit-out programme.
“Their (RB Farquhar) quality is second to none. When you have trades on site, you’re not sure whether the plumber has fitted one bathroom and his apprentice the next. When pods come out of a factory, you know that each has a consistent quality.
“Their (RB Farquhar) delivery suits our programme. It gives us the opportunity to concentrate on, and carry out, work across the rest of the site.
RB Farquhar sales director Patrick McDonald believes that these two contracts are further evidence of the company’s market-leading capabilities in supplying bathroom pods to the UK and European hotel sectors.
“We have now added Premier Inn to a list of long-term hotel clients that includes Travelodge, Express by Holiday Inn, Radisson, Marriott and other blue-chip brands,” he notes.
Architects for the Manchester Airport Premier Inn are Leach Rhodes Walker, and for Doncaster the developer is Basilton Properties and the architect Cartright Pickard.
