National Express West Midlands
Perry Barr Depot

National Express West Midlands is continuing its journey to being net zero with the opening of its new depot in Perry Barr, just Northwest of Birmingham city centre. Officially opened in December 2022, full operations have now begun at the new, environmentally-sustainable bus depot and maintenance garage, the new facility housing a fleet of 170 buses, with over 200 journeys a day starting and ending at the location. The 6.5-acre site provides a base for over 450 drivers, engineers and back-office workers, and has been developed with the capacity to house a full fleet of electric buses and their chargers.

David Bradford, Managing Director of National Express West Midlands, said: “From the start of the project, we wanted to create a site that offered not only a high-quality working environment but also ensured a low environmental impact in both the build and future operations.” [… a perfect match for Zip-Clip solutions]

Each of the catenaries was suspended between 10.5 m galvanised steel posts. At the time, this span width had never been done before at Zip-Clip using this specific grade of wire. During installation, Zip-Clip Technical Sales Manager Mark Timberlake was present on site to advise on and oversee assembly of the catenary post attachments, giving instructions on the correct installation sequence.

Once the first catenary system was in place Summit Electrical fitters assembled the remaining systems in line with the first control install.
Finally, all catenaries were tensioned according to pre-determined values for the loads they were to support and the lighting was installed. After the installation, Summit Electrical complimented Mark and the Zip-Clip Team on their hands-on approach to designing the solution and ensuring another efficient and successful installation. [… all in a day’s work for Zip-Clip!]

The complete Zip-Clip solution was supplied through our distribution partner MIDFIX Nottingham.

Click HERE to see drone footage by project architects Janus Architecture. Some great external views of the depot, including our Span-Lock catenary solutions.

Pictures by Adam Fradgley