Large Council | Bristol City Council
Bristol City Council has 30,000 properties of which over 1/3rd are provided as communal or “flatted” properties. These range from sheltered housing for the elderly and disabled through to 21 storey tower blocks.
The Challenge
- In 2003, Avonline was awarded an exclusive 31/2 year contract following a competitive tender award. The contract involved upgrading their 12,000 flatted properties from the existing analogue system to a state of the art Integrated Reception System (IRS). Bristol were the first council to specify two separate IRS points into each property allowing the facility for Digital Satellite, Digital Terrestrial as well as DAB & FM Radio services for their tenants.
The Result
- The Council requested emphasis on communications with tenants for this major project, so initially our Project Manager concentrated on delivering the right awareness programme including the provision of a Tenant Liaison Officer throughout the programme. Once this was agreed, we started the project working in six month tranches. A detailed timetable was prepared based upon the housing stock chosen by the Council for each phase.
- There is a key emphasis on Health and Safety, with a site specific plan being prepared for each location and specially trained engineers deploying the systems at the many tower block sites. Internal and external trunking and cabling is installed under a clean-site policy where our teams remove all site equipment every day. Our Commissioners then complete the Digital head-ends on site after the basic head-end configuration has been built-up and completed at the project staging point in our Bristol offices.
To support the significant level of interaction with the public and installing services in 12,000 homes, our dedicated Customer Support Helpdesk provides support to our field teams. As at 09/05 our teams have successfully completed 75% of the programme.
