VERSA STUDIOS – MANCHESTER
The old Granada Studios were located on Quay Street in Manchester. Purpose built in 1954 by founder Sidney Bernstein as part of Granada Television.
The facilities were equipped to do both recorded and live filming, and were the headquarters for Granada (latterly ITV) between 1956 and 2013. Until 2013 the Quay Street studios were the oldest operating, purpose-built television studios in the United Kingdom.
The studios were home to many great television programmes such as Coronation Street, King Lear with Sir Laurence Olivier, Brideshead Revisited, Cracker and The Royle Family. The studios have also been the start of many glittering careers and notably is the venue in which the Beatles gave their first ever television performance in 1962. In 2013 ITV Granada and ITV Studios relocated to a new home in Salford.
From 2016 we have been refurbishing these iconic studios, adding new state-of-the-art facilities to support production requirements today and growing the number of studios and stages to the current portfolio of fifteen studios and stages. So far, we have supported production of a wide range of new television programmes and feature films, including BAFTA and Oscar winning productions. Now we are pleased to now share with you Manchester Studios, a space reborn and ready for a new creative community.
OUR INVOLVEMENT
Adept successfully obtained the Versa Studios contract in 2022, which is spread across two sites in Manchester and Leeds. Our Security Officers provide lock down, keyholding and patrols both locations. Our supervisors are responsible for the initial meet and greet of staff and visitors, use of electronic visitor registration, printing of badges, stationary orders, and post allocation. Our Mobile Supervisor, Toby, was recently awarded an ‘A-Grade Award’ for his outstanding people skills and friendly attitude he brings to her role.
MOBILISATION CHALLENGE
The operation required the TUPE transfer of 16 security staff and 4 Specialist Cleaners, and included a full spectrum of duties from controlling gates for restricted access and egress to emergency incident response. There were some additional challenges to overcome within week 2 of our 3-week mobilisation. As part of the service requirements, Adept would be required to provide additional staff to cover productions over the contract term. This requirement was requested to go live from the 4th February, which would require an additional 11 employees to cover the production requirements.
Versa also wanted to relaunch the brand identity on the contract start date, this included the following:
- New bespoke designed uniform and branding across all operations – Our uniform supplier was introduced to the client to design the new casual uniform.
- A designed ‘Customer Experience Programme’ – launched which would cover customer training delivered in two areas – Welcome services offering and Security customer awareness training
- A new health & wellbeing programme – for all staff who would be deployed across the operation
- Rapid Response Vehicle – introduced and fully operational for contract live date
- Site assignment instructions and risk assessments – implemented at all three locations
- Relief support induction training – prior to contract start date, which includes two days and two nights training shifts
- Risk Watch – our in-house patrol monitoring, task and compliance system implemented across each location with active NFC tags to monitor our compliance to internal and external patrols
- MyHR – Staff communication platform provided to all transferring staff, allowing them to check pay, shift allocation, and book holidays.
