Olympic Gold

In the wake of the preparations for the 2012 Olympics, more than 215 business were told to move to newer pastures by July 2007. With the prospect of eviction from their former site in Stratford hanging over their heads, Wanis successfully relocated from its former site to a newly created Business Park in Leyton. Negotiations with the London Development Agency (LDA) commenced in 2003 and culminated in Wanis moving to its new site with literally days before the 2nd July deadline was reached for possession of its former site.

Says Kapil Wadhwani, Project Co-ordinator for the move, "Moving premises can be protracted and stressful at the best of times, but throw in a government agency, the GLA, a local council, a developer and a main contractor and the scope for delays and setbacks multiplies rather than decreases." The building works were started in July 2006 without formal planning consent being received - effectively building at risk should the local planners decide otherwise. "The developers Rosemound took a practical approach and started work on the basis of information they received from the local planners prior to formal sign off."

By April 2007 it was apparent the building was behind schedule for a June completion. With the intervention of the LDA and buy-in from Costain, the main contractors, a recovery programme was put in place to get the build schedule back on track. The building was due to be finished by mid June which left a fortnight for Wanis to evacuate from its former site. With the deadline looming, Wanis was forced to move stock whilst building was still in full swing. "In the final weeks we started handing out Red Bull to all the contractors to keep them working in overdrive", recollects Kapil. The final push came with the closure of the roads surrounding Wanis which deterred most of its customers and left the company reeling.

Despite the new building not fully finished the decision was taken that it would be better to trade from an accessible site than from the closed down Waterden Road. General Manager Paul Fearey commented "The planning and co-ordination from all the team at Wanis really came together in the last fortnight when approximately 5,000 pallets were moved in a matter of days. After the first five days of road closures we moved that very weekend to avoid damaging trade further."

With the backing of the London Development Agency the site is now completed and at the request of Wanis was named Golden Business Park in recognition of the achievements of all the winners that helped make the business park a shining example of the positive regeneration coming from the 2012 Olympic wave.