Sheffield based company Street CraneXpress Ltd (part of the SCX Group) are currently engineering a new retractable roof for Wimbledon’s Centre Court, Britain’s home of tennis.  The roof is currently being constructed on a specially designed test rig only minutes away from the famous Twin Towers which are due for demolition any time now. 

The site for the test rig in Brinsworth was chosen by SCX due to the amount of space available and the close proximity to the company’s head office in Wincobank.   The rig will consist of one half of the roof, comprising all the different moving parts.  It will enable SCX to simulate the controls and movements and to ensure that all the different sections are able to operate together smoothly and efficiently before the roof is transported down to London and erected over the world’s most famous tennis court.

Due to be completed ready for the 2009 Championships, the roof itself will be a retractable 6000 square metre folding fabric concertina which will open out and enclose the stadium at 13m per minute.  The fabric is flexible - meaning it can be folded into a compressed area when not in use - and translucent, so that Centre Court should have an "open" feel even when the roof is closed.  The fabric is a special waterproof structural material that is very strong and highly flexible.

The roof has been designed to be deployed in under 10 minutes.  If the roof is being closed for rain, court covers will protect the grass in the usual way while closure is in progress.  After the roof has been closed, play can resume in approximately 30 minutes, depending on climatic conditions, allowing television companies - who provide the bulk of Wimbledon's revenue - to be able to broadcast almost unbroken coverage of play on every day.

So whilst the coming months may see the end of an era for a symbol of Sheffield’s industrial heritage, it also sees exciting new progress in the shape of a massively high profile project for one of the city’s established engineering companies.