Before the devastating Grenfell Tower fire in June 2017, its first floor was home to the Dale Youth Boxing Club which was both a valued local resource and one of the best boxing clubs in the country. The club has been credited with turning around the lives of many young people, as well as turning out Olympic gold medal winner James DeGale and world champion George Groves, together with nurturing 200 Amateur Boxing Association champions since it was founded 60 years ago. The BBC’s flagship renovation programme DIY SOS has, with the help of international flooring specialist Gerflor, rebuilt this community hub and boxing gym. The reconstruction saw the Dale Youth Boxing Club and hub re-housed under the A40 Westway, just metres from the derelict tower. Speaking about the project, presenter Nick Knowles said at the time, “It is the biggest and morally most important project we have done in a long time.”
The new gym would need a selection of top-flight flooring products to enable the club to re-emerge once again as a vital hub within the community.
The installer Kent-based Arcadia Flooring continually source the best quality products which, combined with the expert skill of their floor layers results in a professional, high standard of finish. Arcadia Flooring installed three of Gerflor’s world- renowned sports flooring products - Taraflex® Comfort, Taraflex® Performance and Taraflex® Surface.
Gary Perry, Managing Director at Arcadia Flooring commented, “I’ve always wanted to do something charitable to help a community cause, so when my wife saw the advert in the Metro Newspaper about DIY SOS Grenfell I asked my Sales Manager, Seda Sadrettin to get in touch with them”. He went on to further add, “The designers already had an idea they wanted to use Gerflor as they had supported previous DIY SOS projects and so it was just a case of Seda speaking to Gerflor to get the right specification for the areas”.
Gerflor have more than 70 years of experience with their Taraflex® sports flooring. It offers a wide range of colours and is suitable for a variety of applications. Taraflex® sports floors have been made since 1947 and used by the largest international sports federations (volleyball, handball, badminton, table tennis) for decades.
Through partnerships with these federations, Gerflor has been present at the Summer Olympic Games since 1976. It’s an Olympic pedigree stretching back over an incredible 42 years.
On delivery and performance Seda Sadrettin further commented, “We couldn’t fault how efficient the delivery of materials was, considering the ridiculously short time scale. In addition to this we were provided with all the technical installation data we asked for and the materials were great to work with. The finish was fantastic and the comments from various other trades on site were wonderful. This was a real logistical and physical challenge. Turning this project around in such a tight time scale would not have been possible without the long hours of hard work put in by our fitters and the support of Gerflor’s Suzanne Harvey, ensuring materials arrived on time”. After the show was aired, Arcadia, received an email from Gordon at DIY SOS who said, “You were a joy to work with and helped to achieve the impossible in a crazy short time scale. The flooring all looked awesome and everyone involved from Arcadia was incredible: dedicated, committed and extremely hard working – all of which we’re hugely thankful for”.
Taraflex® Comfort is a P3 category sports flooring, ideal for a variety of sport and leisure activities. Offering a high level of shock absorption, minimising the force of impact on the body and reducing long term injury risk. Taraflex® is available in 17 colours and three wood-effect designs. The Performance product offers a P2 category shock absorbency 35% to 45%. Taraflex® is recognised for providing durability, safety and comfort without impairing performance. The range also offers greater than 45% force reduction, making it unrivalled in the marketplace in terms of offering comfort for users. Taraflex® meets the EN Standard of 22196 for anti- bacterial activity (E. coli - S. aureus - MRSA) (3) returning >99% levels of growth inhibition. The product is also treated with Protecsol®, which renders polish redundant and is triple action meaning no polish is ever required, it contributes to easy maintenance and is anti-friction burn and slide/grip. Taraflex® has a double density foam backing and with another bonus, it’s environmentally friendly. Taraflex® Performance from Gerflor also meets the EN 14904 Standard for indoor sports surfaces. It is also ideal for renovation works and is available with the Dry-Tex™ System perfect for new construction or refurbishment projects with damp subfloors.
The largest area in the gym would see some 160m2 of Gerflor’s Taraflex® Surface installed which provided the perfect multipurpose single layer floorcovering solution capable of withstanding storage units, the moving of gym equipment and heavy footfall. It is especially suited for rolling sports. The sport surface is also available in 17 solid colours and three wood designs and comes with the Protecsol® surface treatment, providing excellent grip/ slide compromise, low friction burns and low maintenance.
Seda Sadrettin ended by saying, “If given the opportunity to influence the specification for similar works we would definitely encourage clients to choose Gerflor because the products are both aesthetically pleasing as well as great quality. We were honoured to be able to work on this project and we are hugely grateful for the incredible donation of Gerflor for the sports flooring and Gradus for the stair nosings and entrance matting”.
Learn more about Gerflor solutions, ask for a free sample or contact us to speak to a specialist today by calling 01926 622 600, emailing contractuk@gerflor.com, or visiting gerflor.co.uk for the latest innovations.
