As well as the new racetrack and new turf, the new Ascot grandstand now has seven restaurants, 265 hospitality boxes and numerous bars and eating stations.  Out with old favourites like the Mill Reef Bar and in with the Winners’ Bar and The Shore Thing, which serves seafood.  There’s certainly a wide choice when it comes to consuming the 170,000 bottles of champagne glugged by the punters during the course of the week- each and every one of them chilled to perfection by Williams Refrigeration.

The Williams response to the Ascot redevelopment challenge is typical of those suppliers selected to contract with the developers.  The project was ambitious and time was tight – everything had to run smoothly and there was little room for slippage of deadlines since, prior to the official opening by The Queen on the first day of Royal Ascot on 20th June 2006, there was a dry run ‘test day’ on May 27th.   This went without a hitch, despite there being 1,600 hard hatted construction workers on site the day before the test day.

For the catering and event function aspect of the new facility to work effectively, much thought had to go into the refrigeration, freezing and chilling required for the highly demanding menus and drinks capacities. To cope with these levels of demands Williams coldrooms were the solution.  Williams supplied a total of 74 coldrooms to the site.  Working with catering consultants MDA (Mike Driscoll Associates) Williams had to respond to a complicated brief which required the installation of the coldrooms around columns and the manoeuvring of equipment to various levels requiring hoists and forklift trucks.  In addition all the condensing units in the main production kitchen and kitchen store areas at Lawn Level were fitted on custom made frameworks.  These logistical demands had to be taken into consideration by the Williams engineering team in detailing final specifications.  In addition the site required a high level of health and safety risk management, with risk assessments and method statements required at every activity stage. 

Williams supplied a wide range of units to the new Grandstand as well as the coldrooms.  The equipment included three modular blast chillers, condensing and evaporating units and Frostechnic control panels as well as supplying 389 reach-in cabinets and undercounter units.  Williams had a project management team on-site throughout the installation of equipment this enable the 74 coldrooms to be installed on time using only four coldroom fabricators, two refrigeration engineers and two electricians.  The relevant Operating and Maintenance manual, which was put together by Williams Southern office, ran to 50 pages including all commissioning and test certificates.