Tesco’s buyout of Tesco Bank from the Royal Bank of Scotland coincided with Tesco Bank establishing new independent office accommodation, initially with new Headquarters (40,000 f²) in Haymarket, Edinburgh. DSSR provided building services consultancy for their initial Haymarket project, together with the rollout of their entire new Bank office portfolio, including Newcastle (100,000 f²), Glasgow (120,000 f²), and finally Edinburgh, South Gyle (100,000 f²). We provided full mechanical & electrical design duties for each of these projects, all based on the Cat B fit-out of existing Grade A accommodation.

DSSR assisted Tesco Bank with their building selections in advance of these projects, ensuring their building selections met their technical requirements. Due to the required occupancy levels, the CAT A HVAC systems needed to be supplemented in each location. DSSR worked with the landlord’s design team to ensure this was carried out as efficiently as possible, often working with existing building planning and space constraints.

Through the use of building performance modelling, we ensured the supplementary systems were as efficient as possible. This allowed creative and innovative solutions to be found for the required new external plant in certain circumstances.
We also helped the new Tesco Bank business to establish the building services brief based on our experience with other financial institutions (e.g. Royal Bank of Scotland, TSB, etc.).

During the fit-outs, we worked with the various stakeholders (including IT, FM, Security, Risk Management) within Tesco Bank to establish appropriate electrical resiliency requirements (i.e. including standby generation, UPS and incoming telecoms), IT cabling/ distribution strategies and Comms Room requirements, before establishing and evolving the brief for Tesco over the years.