Dura Composites is a leading global supplier of composite products for flooring, structures and facades, which are ideal for the industrial, construction, rail, marine, landscaping & architectural sectors as a long-lasting and cost-effective replacement for wood, steel and concrete.
Our experienced team has extensive knowledge and practical experience of fibreglass reinforced plastic, composite timber and other related emerging materials. The range of products on offer from Dura Composites is vast, from floor walkway grating, garden decking, building cladding and industrial hand railing to service risers and trench covers. All products offer customers a low life cycle cost thanks to their long life expectancy and low maintenance requirements.
Dura Composites’ Queen’s Award-Winning innovation is known as Dura Platform. It was developed in response to a gap identified in the market by Dura Composites’ Commercial Director Tom Bowman, and is in essence a height-adjustable composite (Glass Reinforced Polymer) train station platform that reduces gaps between the train and platform edge to enhance passenger safety.
After over a century of heavy use, many of the UK’s train station platforms now require replacement as they reach the end of their service life. Traditionally concrete has been used but this can require large sections of the track to be temporarily shut down for building work to take place, which disrupts passengers and is costly; often as work has to take place during the night.
Dura Platform can cut platform installation time by up to 65% - benefiting passengers who are able to re-access the station sooner and saving labour costs for rail contractors who can manoeuvre our modular platform sections more easily without the need for expensive lifting equipment and additional man hours.
With several unique patented features, Dura Platform has a design life in excess of 60 years, making it a truly future-proof solution – as it allows for platform height adjustments to be made quickly and easily to suit the requirements of future rolling train stock.
Why your business decided to apply for a Queen’s Award for Enterprise
We’ve had a reputation as leaders in innovation for almost a quarter of a century, from modest beginnings supplying anti-slip flooring for marinas & pontoons. If innovation is about developing more effective processes, products, and ideas, then it’s absolutely at the core of the Dura Composites ethos and has allowed us to stay relevant in an increasingly competitive market.
Our vision of making composites mainstream has kept us focused on showcasing how they can be used to solve real-world challenges for our clients and customers, often above more traditionally accepted materials such as steel, wood and concrete. It’s this passion for innovation and performance improvement that inspired us to apply for the Queen’s Awards for Enterprise.
What winning the award has meant for your business/ staff.
Winning the Queen’s Award has brought an immense sense of pride both for our UK team and our overseas distribution partners, and our recent presentation by the Lord Lieutenant of Essex Jennifer Tolhurst, was the high point of our year.
Having won previously in 2017 in the category of International Trade we have experienced how globally renowned the award is and have seen it open new doors for us, as well as serving as Royal recognition of our achievements at the forefront of composite material technology.
We’ve been delighted to fly the Queen’s Award emblem flag at each of our premises and have included it within our livery, marketing materials and product packaging wherever possible to help give us an edge over our competitors. It’s also been a great boost to staff morale and has undoubtedly instilled confidence and pride in employees at all levels of our organisation.
How winning the award will benefit your business.
While the future trading relationship with the EU remains unclear, we’ve invested time and energy on government funded opportunities in the Rail and Energy sectors and on discovering new markets abroad – both of which we are sure will be helped by the Queens Award win.
Any advice you have for future Queen’s Award applicants.
We’d encourage anyone thinking about entering for this year’s awards to go for it – the marketing benefits are valid for 5 years and is a great way of raising your profile and elevating your business above the competition.
For further insight into Dura Composites' Award and celebration ceremony, check out our YouTube video here: https://youtu.be/R9qOoYgVWhE
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Find out more on their website: www.duracomposites.com
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