Two teams of four Leaderflush Shapland employees successfully completed the 2010 Cooper Parry corporate challenge in Nottingham. Team 1 came in 8th out of 37 with a time of 1:48:32 and Team 2 finished 12th out of 37 with a time of 1:54:42.

The annual event is a relay race covering 13.1 miles; it raises money for the Treetops Hospice and the Leukaemia & Lymphoma Research charities with both teams raising nearly £300 together.

The Cooper Parry Corporate Challenge has been a firm fixture in the Nottingham business calendar for eight years and is the single biggest contributor to the marathon charities.

Estover Community Campus is one of the biggest investments for children and young people in Plymouth in the last decade. 441 Leaderflush Shapland Designer and Extended Performance doorsets were specified for the £28m project which is due for completion late 2010. It will create a home for Estover Community College; Estover Primary School, Plymbridge Children’s Centre and Nursery School, the Soundhouse, Estover Library, Estover Youth Centre, part of Plymouth Hospital School and Downham School.

Features include flexible space to allow classrooms to change size and shape, breakout areas, an amphitheatre for hosting outdoor performances, dedicated wings for subjects such as design and arts and information technology, and open plan internal and external dining spaces alongside mezzanine areas. An inner courtyard area will act as the heart of the campus and a central link to all of the facilities.

The doorsets were laminate faced in a range of colours and specified to meet performance characteristics of 60 minute fire resistance and 38 RwdB sound reduction. Leaderflush Shapland’s revolutionary hand and finger protection solution, Sentinel was also specified, which prevents fingers from getting into the hinge area of the door. ROSPA reports that 30,000 children trap and seriously injure their fingers in doors each year. Sentinel is aesthetically pleasing, robust, cannot be easily damaged or pulled off and complies with British Standards for accessibility.

Further innovations include EnduraCor - Leaderflush Shapland’s engineered performance doorset core whose durability and strength is especially suited to withstanding such harsh environments. Independent testing showed EnduraCor to be 100 times more durable than multi-layered chipboard cores. EnduraCor achieved 2,000,000 cycles during the test, 1,000,000 more than the requirements of EN1191 class 8 - this easily equates to the number of door opening occurrences throughout the lifespan of a busy school building. This highly cost-effective solution may never have to be replaced and could significantly reduce ‘whole life’ repair and maintenance costs.

Main contractor Kier's Dafydd Hollyman commented that; "As Project Director for Estover Community Campus I was impressed by the quality of the workmanship and materials within the doorsets supplied by Leaderflush Shapland. It was also great to include some real innovation on this flag-ship scheme such as the use of Sentinel, Leaderflush Shapland's finger trap protection system, which made installation easy and has provided a neat solution in high risk areas of the Campus".

For many years, Leaderflush Shapland has created doorset solutions which are suitable for the most demanding healthcare situations including surgery suites, pathology labs and pharmacies and can satisfy a wide range of technical performance requirements such as fire resistance, smoke control, sound reduction, antimicrobial protection, water resistance and X-ray protection.

Combating healthcare associated infections (HCAIs) is crucial in healthcare environments. As such, Leaderflush Shapland has developed doorset solutions in their Designer, Plasform and Extended Performance ranges which help raise the standards of hygiene and aid in controlling the spread of infections through the use of a highly effective antibacterial additive which kills harmful species of bacteria including C.diff, MRSA, Salmonella and E.coli remaining effective for years. The additive has been used as a standard finish for Leaderflush Shapland’s veneered doorsets for some time and has now been extended to PVC facings to create Hygieniform.

Hygieniform is a high impact PVC which incorporates the anti-microbial additive throughout the complete 2mm thickness of the PVC, so that even if the surface is scratched, it will still keep it’s antimicrobial properties, as well as being suitable for ‘severe duty’ applications through it’s durability and robust qualities.

To reduce contamination further, Leaderflush Shapland offers a range of architectural hardware which can also incorporate the antibacterial additive to provide a complete end-to-end antimicrobial doorset solution for a total bespoke doorset package

Infection Control in the Built Environment (design and planning) calls for smooth, hard impervious surfaces which are easy to clean and durable. Leaderflush Shapland offers many suitable products including Plasform fully encapsulated postformed doorsets – suitable for all healthcare environments, which avoid sharp corners and are resistant to chemicals. Plasform gives flexibility for many applications allowing tremendous scope to demonstrate flair through colourful or simple, contemporary designs.

In the last 12 months, Leaderflush Shapland has manufactured nearly 14,000 doorsets for health projects alone. Over 1,200 doorsets were supplied to the three hospital schemes which are on the list of Europe's most-impressive architectural projects - the New Stobhill Hospital in Glasgow, Downe Hospital in Northern Ireland and The Skypad Teenage Cancer Trust Unit in Cardiff. Competing with flagship residential, leisure, industrial and educational facilities, the three developments were singled out as examples of design best practice in the 2010 RIBA Awards.