A brand new, state-of-the-art building, which pushes the boundaries of environmentally friendly design and will be the first of its kind in the Midlands, is being built at the Watermead Business Park in Syston, owned by client Raynsway Properties. 

The £1.5m project is seeing a 6,000 sq ft regional office constructed for Interserve Project Services, one of the world’s foremost support services and construction companies, using the design principles of PassivHaus, a well established German based building standard which reduces energy costs by approximately 90%, compared to traditional build properties both in the residential and commercial markets.

The project is believed to be the first of its kind in the Midlands, with only two other PassivHaus offices completed in the country at present. Build work is expected to take until July 2011 to complete.

The Unsworth Sugden PR team secured the following coverage in this week’s Leicester Mercury business supplement about the project.

A CGI of the new Interserve office at the Watermead Business Park in Syston

Client Schlüter-Systems, the Coalville-based leading UK provider of tile solutions, has recently invested £100,000 in a brand new e-learning academy, the very first free online training facility of its kind in the industry.

As well as targeting the tiling and construction trade press with the story, the PR team also achieved the following great piece in today’s Leicester Mercury business section.

The team is also busy preparing an entry for the Schlüter Online Academy into the ‘Best Innovation’ category at the Tile Association Awards 2011. Keep checking the blog for more information….

The Schlüter Online Academy will help train people up and down the country from the comfort of their PC

Client Westleigh Developments is offering business across the region the chance to win £1,000 for the charity of their choice by playing its festive, online game.

Rather than sending Christmas cards to its suppliers and customers, Whetstone-based property developer Westleigh has again chosen the green option, in line with its GreenHouse environmental commitment and made its season’s greetings via email. Recipients are then invited to log on to play “Christmas Demolition”, a simple game where participants win points and complete levels by demolishing targets.

The game is also available at www.westleigh.co.uk and runs until 10am on Wednesday 22^nd December 2010.

Westleigh's 'Christmas Demolition' game

The latest issue of client Axess 4 All’s ‘Platform’ newsletter is now available following work by the PR team.

Issue 4 features:

• Case studies of recent installations across the country, including the Victoria & Albert museum in London and in the Yorkshire town of Holmfirth, best known as the setting for Last of the Summer Wine.
• News on a new internal sales team at Axess 4 All and a newly designed product.
• Information on a role in a £4.2m regeneration project in Middlesbrough
• General Manager Jason King is this issue’s ‘In the Hot Seat’ candidate
• Plus there’s a selection of wine available to those who enter the Prize Draw

You will shortly be able to see a copy of Platform on the Axess 4 All website. Just visit www.axess4all.com and click on News, where you can download a PDF.

Construction students from Leicester College have visited one of the biggest affordable homes schemes in the city to learn more about timber frame as part of their studies.

Thirteen trainee bricklayers and two lecturers from the college’s Freemens Park campus visited the £15m project on Ross Walk, in the Belgrave area of the city, where 119 new affordable homes are being built by client Westleigh Developments using timber frame construction methods.

The Leicester Mercury featured the visit in this weekend’s property section and obviously loved our photography so much they decided to use the same image not once, not twice but three times in the same supplement!

See for yourself by clicking on this PDF link: leicester-mercury-property-041210-ross-walk-student-site-visit

Westleigh senior site manager Jason Mann with three of the students from Leicester College who visited the Ross Walk scheme

David Wilson North Midlands hosted a magical launch event at its Fernwood Village development in Newark this month. Homehunters were treated to a feast of jacket potatoes, popcorn and candy floss and were dazzeled by the fast hands of magician Trickster John.

The magician and two of his captivated audience!

A £13m development of 80 new affordable family homes in Birstall was recently opened by the Mayor of Charnwood after work by client Westleigh Developments and de Montfort Housing Society, part of the Waterloo Housing Group.

The joint venture between Westleigh’s Partnership Homes division and the housing association, has seen 77 two-, three- and four-bedroom houses and three one-bedroom apartments built on the Hallam Fields development located just off the junction of the A6 and A46, to the north of Leicester.

Dave Toyn from the Unsworth Sugden PR team attended a launch event held on a cold but sunny morning as Councillor Jill Vincent, Mayor of Charnwood, unveiled a stone plaque to commemorate the opening.

Coverage has subsequently been received in the Leicester Mercury and Leicestershire Builder Magazine.

l-r Ian Jones of Westleigh, Margaret Allen (HCA), Ted Carr (de Montfort) and Cllr Jill Vincent, Mayor of Charnwood

A selection of the new affordable homes at Hallam Fields in Birstall

Last week was Energy Saving Week and the PR team was on hand to ensure it didn’t waste an opportunity to gain some client coverage.

Westleigh Developments had recently announced the results of a company incentive scheme which rewards its most efficient company drivers with a prize. Its annual statistics showed a 12% reduction in the amount of fuel used by its employees in the past 12 months which equated to 8,000 litres of fuel.

Taking a typical Westleigh vehicle from its fleet, the PR team put on their thinking caps and calculated that this equated to 87,987 miles - enough fuel to drive around the world three times - and approximately 24 tonnes of CO2 saved.

This resulted in a press release - featured in last Friday’s Leicester Mercury - and photography of Craig Johnson, Environmental and Quality Manager at Westleigh.

Craig Johnson at client Westleigh Developments Ltd

The driving incentive is just one of a number of measures taken by Westleigh as part of its Greenhouse environmental policy, a commitment launched four years ago to becoming an environmentally responsible organisation, through both its administrative and onsite activities. For more information please visit www.westleigh.co.uk.

Barratt West Midlands held a SPOOK-TACULAR weekend event at its Monarch Fields development in Telford. Halloween treats were given to little terrors dressed in their scariest costume as the grown up ghosts and ghouls visited the new showhome.

Here are two of the sales advisers getting into the bewitching spirit!

No tricks, just treats!