26 February 2016

Two Costain joint ventures were honoured in this year’s Highways England Supplier Recognition Scheme awards. A-One+ and Manchester Smart Motorways scooped prizes in three of the eight categories.

A-One+ Integrated Highway Services won the Safety, Health and Wellbeing award, which goes to suppliers that show industry leading commitment to improving organisational, workforce and road user health and safety. The Costain, Colas and Halcrow joint venture won it for its worker wellbeing initiatives that helped to lower absence rates. These included a mental health programme, sleep management and a summer health campaign

A-One+ Integrated Highway Services was also highly commended in the Customer Experience category for suppliers that have demonstrated industry-leading commitment to customer service.

Clive Leadbetter, A-one+ Managing Director, said: “We are extremely honoured to be recognised by the prestigious Highways England Supplier Recognition Scheme and these categories in particular demonstrate our continued efforts in delivering quality services and solutions for the industry. We are totally dedicated to the safety of our teams and improving road user experience and will continue to push benchmark boundaries in an effort to make a real difference”.

Another Costain joint venture, Manchester Smart Motorways, was highly commended in the Supply Chain Management award. This is awarded to suppliers that demonstrate Highways England’s strategic agenda, values and principles through supply chains. The award recognises all of the hard work that the MSM Traffic Management Team, led by Virtus Ltd, put into managing the traffic management supply chain and building relationships with key stakeholders.

The team worked closely with the supply chain along with stakeholders such as Greater Manchester Police, the Highways England North West Regional Control Centre (RCC) and Traffic Officer Services, in order to gain a greater understanding of each other’s roles and responsibilities when dealing with traffic related operations and managing incidents on this notoriously difficult network. This award is a great example of how collaborative relationships can benefit major projects and MSM is now working hard towards gaining further construction related awards for the project.

Phil Harrop, Project Manager with P&D Specialist Services, worked closely with MSM and
Virtus when installing CCTV cameras on the network during the early stages of the project. Phil told MSM: “Well done MSM and Virtus, your award is thoroughly deserved. We would like to thank you for your efforts in implementing the 50mph speed limit whilst we have been setting up the CCTV and speed cameras. This is the first project that we have worked on where the speed limit has been set at 50mph during the enabling phase. Our teams have felt much safer working within the hard shoulder closures with the reduced speed limit in place, and will be requesting that other schemes consider this approach during the early installation stages. The award is very much deserved”.

The awards, which are in their fifth year, recognise the vital contribution made by the suppliers who help Highways England modernise, maintain and operate England’s network of motorways and major A roads. Despite a record year in 2014 with 118 entries, the 2015 scheme surpassed this with 166 entries. Four small and medium enterprises (SMEs) and six members of the extended supply chain were successful in the eight categories, most in partnership with Tier One suppliers.

Said Jim O’Sullivan, Chief Executive of Highways England: “To have surpassed last year’s success is tremendous and it’s a credit to our suppliers who are demonstrating they can continuously improve to provide even better working practices and more innovative solutions.

“As we place even more emphasis on safety and customer service for all who use our network, my message to suppliers is thanks and let’s continue to improve together.
This is good progress and we must make sure that by 2020 we can be proud of the delivery of the first Road Investment Strategy and well placed to deliver the next one.”

 

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