GEDA at the heart of the renovation of Hull's Maritime Museum

A major construction site in the English county of East Yorkshire: extensive renovation work is currently underway at the nationally famous Hull Maritime
Museum is currently undergoing extensive renovation work to restore the building's impressive architecture to its former glory. Since 2021, the multi-million euro
Refurbishment project has been implemented by numerous craftsmen and service providers on site. With the planned reopening in spring 2026, the museum will soon once again be a central location for exploring Britain's rich maritime history.

Kingston upon Hull on England's east coast is one of Yorkshire's most popular tourist destinations, attracting visitors with its Victorian architecture and picturesque waterfront. The impressive Hull Maritime Museum building was originally opened in 1871 as an administrative building at the port of Hull and has seen countless ships pass by its windows throughout its history. A century later, in 1975, the city's Maritime Museum was opened inside and has continued to expand. Now, 50 years later, an ambitious restoration project is breathing new life into the historic halls: The work, carried out by main contractor Simpson Construction of York Ltd, includes replacing pipework, insulation measures and roof repairs.

Access with obstacles
Right from the start, tubular scaffolding was erected on the outer façade of the building, not only to allow workers from various trades to access their workstations, but also to allow work to be carried out directly on the façade. To make the logistics here more efficient, the general contractor opted for the long-term hire of a construction hoist and found the perfect solution in the 2-tonne GEDA 1500 Z/ZP transport platform from Speedy Hire. Glen Philips, Speedy's Project Manager, describes the challenges this approach presented:

"Firstly, we had to coordinate with the scaffolding hire company as we needed to make some modifications to the scaffolding. Once we had confirmed the comparatively low anchoring forces of the construction hoist, we were able to anchor the machine directly to the scaffolding. This was a much better alternative, as the historic façade of the building is a listed building and therefore could not be drilled into. We also adapted the usual 2-metre sections of the scaffolding to a width of 3 meters in order to integrate the elevator's wide unloading ramp. This meant that the often bulky and palletized materials could be transported directly from the trucks into the elevator and from there into the building."

Long-standing partnership paired with the latest innovations

With hundreds of rental locations across the UK, Speedy Hire has been a valued GEDA customer for many years. Their elevator fleet includes numerous GEDA branded elevators - most frequently the GEDA 1500 Z/ZP, type "GD" 2-ton transport platform. The elevator was used as a material elevator for the renovation of the museum and was chosen specifically because of its spacious platform. Positioned parallel to the building, the GD platform extends over an impressive loading width of 4.35 meters and can be easily loaded and unloaded with a forklift truck. All contractors benefited from this - as scaffolding materials as well as steel beams and plasterboard pallets had to be transported to different levels up to the full building height of 25 meters. Rubber mats were also laid under the elevator to protect the cobbles in Hull's historic city center. The low 32 amp power supply proved beneficial as the old building required all its power for the ongoing construction work. The client was delighted with the GEDA transport platform and emphasized that it was used far more than originally expected
than originally expected. For Speedy Hire, the GEDA elevator once again proved itself to be a
reliable, versatile and efficient machine.

Safe, ergonomic and efficient: features of the GEDA 1500 Z/ZP GD

The GEDA 1500 Z/ZP transport platform is available in 16 different platform variants - 12 of which offer a load capacity of 2,000 kg in different platform sizes. Each variant can be used either for transporting people and materials or just materials, making it the most popular transport platform in the industry. The ergonomically lightweight masts can be safely erected by two fitters, allowing quick and easy assembly of the machine up to a height of 100 meters.