The Queen’s Awards for Enterprise: Innovation 2020
Having previously won a prestigious Queen’s Award for Enterprise in International Trade in 2017, this time the Essex-based company, which is now entering its 25th year of trading, has been recognised for its outstanding Innovation – thanks largely to the success of its rapid-deployment composite train station platform.
With many of the UK’s train station platforms requiring repairs and replacement after decades of rising commuter levels and heavy use, the award-winning Dura Platform has been designed to provide easier access for passengers as well as saving labour costs and reducing installation times for rail contractors who can manoeuvre Dura’s modular platform sections easily without the need for expensive lifting equipment and additional labour that traditional concrete platforms require. With several unique patented features, Dura Platform has a design life in excess of 60 years, making it a truly futureproof solution and allows for platform height adjustments to be made quickly and easily to suit the requirements of future rolling train stock.
Dura Composites vision of making composites mainstream has kept the company focused on solving real-world challenges for its clients and customers, often above more traditionally accepted materials such as steel, wood and concrete. As a manufacturer providing products and services to critical sectors, it has been vital that the company remained safely operational in a Covid19-secure environment during the most recent lockdown, so that customers could obtain the products they needed to build and repair the UK’s homes and transport infrastructure.
The new 2.5 acre Dura Operations Centre which has been officially opened today as part of the Queen’s Award ceremony is a state of the art, high-functioning facility with 50% more storage space, as well as a spacious office and production facility. Dura Composites has made a significant capital investment into completely redeveloping and expanding the site and are extremely grateful for the additional funding support from Tendring District Council’s SME Growth Fund (jointly funded by Essex Council), without which the Dura Operations Centre project would not have been possible.
