23 October 2013

Costain is celebrating two wins at this year’s Highways Magazine Excellence Awards.

The £32 million Walton Bridge for client Surrey County Council won the Major Project Award, beating off stiff competition from the M25 DBFO contract and the Boston Manor Viaduct.

A-one+ - the Halcrow/Colas/Costain highways service provider - won the Site Safety Initiative Award for its No Strikes IPV (impact protection vehicles) awareness training. It beat a lone worker monitoring initiative and a scheme to reduce carriageway crossings to the top prize.

Both Costain staff and clients attended the awards ceremony and gala dinner at the Grosvenor House Hotel in London on 10 October, joining hundreds of others at what is one of the most popular and prestigious nights in the highways industry calendar.

The Major Project Award for the A244 Walton Bridge Project was “deserved recognition for an excellent project that included constructing a striking steel arch bridge and overcoming numerous engineering challenges,” said Andy Bannister, Project Manager.

The work involved demolishing two existing bridges over the River Thames and replacing them with a landmark steel thrust arch structure. The first new road bridge over the Thames in 20 years, it opened on programme in July this year. Commented the judges: “This was a vast project incorporating the best principles of planning and construction.”

The A-one+ award winner takes a new approach to a long-standing problem: haulage drivers colliding with IPVs at night during traffic management schemes. A-one+ has devised the No Strikes IPV awareness training programme that it is currently taking to the haulage companies. So far around 150 drivers have received the training and feedback has been very good.

“We realised we had to look at this problem in a new way that involved the drivers,” said Clive Leadbetter, General Manager, MAC 14. “The aim is give them an insight into how we work and what the IPV does and means to them as road users and, importantly, to hear from them why they think collisions occur. This will help us develop the IPVs further to ensure that the warning displays have maximum impact.
 
“Winning this award will raise the profile of what we’re doing, which will hopefully help spread the idea and ultimately save lives.”

A-one+ just missed out on two other awards. The Woodhead Pass marking and studding maintenance scheme was shortlisted for the Road Marking Project of the Year, and its A64 Bishopthorpe south bridge joint replacement made the shortlist for the Most Innovative Highways Agency Project of the Year.

Ends