Alexander Stadium Birmingham will be hosting the Commonwealth Games starting in July 2022. The stadium has seen a new grandstand constructed and redevelopment of the original stadium to host the games.

Rope Task were appointed by King & Moffatt to install the speakers to the underside of the new west and east stands at the stadium. Unable to use cranes and due to the difficult nature of accessing the structural steelwork of the stand, rope access and the use of MEWP’s where deemed the safest solution to lift and install the speakers.

Speaker weights varied from 250kg to 475kg including the additional framework to hold the speakers securely in place once installed. To lift the speakers, we used the Harken Riggers Winch. This winch is a specialist lightweight piece of kit that can be installed in multiple locations, ideally suited to working in the structural steel of stadium roofs.

We have successfully used the Harken Riggers Winch to install speakers at West Bromwich Albion Football Club, so used our knowledge from this job to produce a safe method for rope access activities along with a thorough lifting plan that allowed us to complete the task safely.

The larger 475kg speakers were installed using two 500kg chain blocks with 30m chains that allowed us to lift the speakers from seating level up into the steelwork in the roof of the stand. Due to the size and weight of the chain blocks these were lifted into place using the Harken Winch which again proved invaluable in this process.

Once completed, Rope Task proved that rope access was a cost effective and safe solution to the problem of access in the stadium and our customer has continued to use us for the installation of lighting in the west stand of the stadium. The use of rope access and aid climbing techniques is a safe system of work that can be deployed quickly with little interruption to other works in the construction of the stadium.

Since 1998 Rope Task have been experts in the use of Industrial rope access techniques. Risk management is key in rope access, our teams are provided with site specific risk assessment and safe systems of work that are written by rope access managers with over 20 years’ experience of planning and executing work at height operations and specialist rope access tasks.