Plans unveiled to combat wind tunnel effect at skyscraper

Computer-generated images show the huge porous barriers – or ‘baffles’ – that would be installed above neighbouring Water Lane if the safety scheme gets the green light from Leeds City Council.

Site owner CPPI Bridgewater Place Limited Partnership has put together plans for the barriers to try to prevent any repeat of the accidents that have been caused around the building’s base by whipped-up winds.

Other measures in the pipeline include the attachment of vertical screens up to 18 metres tall on the north western corner of the skyscraper.

CPPI’s multi-million pound proposals went on public display on Saturday at Bridgewater Place. A spokeswoman said: “The exhibition was really well received. Around 100 people attended throughout the day and the feedback was largely posi- tive.”

CPPI’s scheme may not be in position until the end of 2015 and the council is therefore proposing its own set of interim safety measures.

They include shutting the area’s Water Lane-Neville Street-Victoria Road junction to traffic when wind speeds hit 45mph, rather than 65mph as has previously been the case.

The council’s plans are in line with recommendations made by the coroner at the inquest into the death of Edward Slaney, a pedestrian from Sowerby Bridge who was killed in 2011 after being crushed by a truck that had been blown off its wheels near Bridgewater Place.

For more details about CPPI’s plans, visit the www.bridgewaterplace-wms.co.uk website.