London calling for Stone
Stone Technical Services is to open a central London office to cope with the rapid growth in the number of new contracts in the city.
In addition, the Darlington-based company has also announced plans to work in partnership with London’s oldest independent building contractors, which also have the honour of being ‘By Appointment to HM Queen Elizabeth II’. Sykes and Son has recently celebrated its 250th anniversary and has selected Stone as their partner to work on all high-level repair, restoration and renovation projects on both historic and modern buildings in and around London.
As well as this new partnership, which could generate hundreds of thousands of pounds worth of work for Stone, the business has also recently won a number of new contracts in London, totalling the region of £60,000
Having already completed various projects at the Royal Courts of Justice, Stone’s restoration experts have been engaged to carry out further work including gantry painting and remedial testing of systems, proof loading and examination of the substructure and reports to provide maintenance programs. Masonry repairs and renewals to the external envelope are also ongoing for architects Purcell Miller Tritton.
At St Paul’s Cathedral, where Stone is the appointed contractor responsible for all structural and high level maintenance repairs and lightning conductor installation, the team will be working on another project to inspect the cathedral’s dome and upper-most gold cross as well as repairing lightning conductors and safety fall-arrest systems.
In the heart of London’s ‘Theatreland’, Stone has secured a contract to upgrade the lightning protection on Shaftesbury Theatre, which dates back to 1911, while in Knightsbridge Stone’s high level maintenance experts have been employed to carry out investigation works on Beaufort House, home to exclusive apartments which are about to undergo a £3 million upgrade.
And, in Paddington, Stone’s team are carrying out high level inspections on Conduit Place.
Stone now employs a team of 26 at its headquarters in Darlington and also at its regional office in Pinner, Middlesex. The company plans to continually grow its workforce and open more regional offices.
Stone specialises in all aspects of high level maintenance, lightning conductor installation and steeplejack services as well as restoration and masonry refurbishment projects on churches, museums, clock towers, castles, spires and historic buildings.
As well as working on high profile buildings such as St Paul’s Cathedral and the Royal Courts of Justice, Stone also carries out projects for organisations such as English Heritage and the National Trust as well as for well known industrial clients such as INEOS Plant Utilities and Teesside Power Station.
Speaking about the expansion in London, managing director, Dave Stone said: “In the last year our portfolio in London has increased dramatically thanks to our work on very high profile buildings. We have worked extensively with Sykes and Son and are delighted to now be working with them as official partners on many restoration projects all over the city.
“This is a very exciting time for Stone as our talented team really is making its mark in London, working on national treasures such as theatres and cathedrals which is a huge privilege. All of this is fuelling our growth in the North East where we are constantly expanding our team of skilled specialists.”
