21 July 2016

The Heysham to M6 Link Road Project for Lancashire County Council has picked up two major awards from the Royal Society for the Prevention of Accidents (RoSPA).

The Costain project team walked away with the prestigious International Dilmun Environmental Award and a RoSPA Gold Award for Occupational Health and Safety at the society’s annual awards ceremony at the ExCeL London recently.

The £130 million Scheme includes a 4.8 km stretch of dual carriageway running from the A589 between Lancaster and Morecambe, an upgraded Junction 34 on the M6 and a new bridge over the River Lune. The scheme will provide better access for residents, businesses and tourists to the area, including a footpath and cycleway along the entire route.

The link road was the first highway and local authority scheme to pass through the new planning regime for Nationally Significant Infrastructure Projects under the Planning Act 2008. Costain was also actively involved in the preparation of the application, public consultations, providing responses to representations and preparing the Consultation Report. Construction began in early 2014.

Winning a RoSPA Gold Award means that a project or team has achieved a very high level of performance, demonstrating well developed occupational health and safety management systems and culture, outstanding control of risk and very low levels of error, harm and loss.

The RoSPA International Dilmun Environmental Award recognises excellence in environmental as well as health and safety management. Costain was shortlisted for the same International Dilmun Environmental Award in 2009.

The way an organisation manages environmental issues is a crucial measure of its standards of corporate social responsibility, competitiveness and vision. Ensuring a positive and lasting environmental legacy is central to Costain’s Sustainability Strategy, ‘Engineering a Sustainable Tomorrow’ which was released earlier this year.

To win the International Dilmun Environmental Award, the team had to demonstrate extensive environmental management, including promoting biodiversity through habitat creation, like hedgerows, and minimise pollution through carbon and greenhouse gas emissions monitoring and reduction, including energy management.

For example, the Heysham to M6 Link Road project had the second highest fuel usage across the company due to extensive earthworks. To address this, the team investigated exactly where fuel was being used on site in order to gain a better understanding about where carbon and energy savings could be made. The project also implemented a monthly carbon tracking initiative to identify areas where carbon reduction could take place.

The team also planned works in accordance with a ‘Waste Hierarchy’, aiming to eliminate waste at source through prioritising prevention and reuse. At Costain, waste management and minimisation practices are part of ‘Be Responsible’ the Groups environmental work plan and targets have been set both for the quantity of waste produced and diverted from landfill.

“Costain’s customers are increasingly placing greater emphasis on the "good citizen" credentials of their supply chain partners. This award shows that Costain is seeking to manage and integrate health and safety and environmental concerns into the heart of our management systems and decision-making,” said Richard Helme, Project Manager on the Heysham to M6 Link Project.

Julia Small, RoSPA’s Head of Awards and Events, added: “To win an award at such a highly-regarded event as the RoSPA Awards is a great achievement for our winners. It recognises their commitment to maintaining an excellent health and safety record and raises the bar for other organisations to aspire to. We offer them our congratulations.”

The project’s performance at this year’s awards builds on a successful 2015 when it won the RoSPA Occupational Health Award (The Astor Trophy).

For more information about RoSPA, please click on the link below:

http://www.rospa.com/

Caption: (left to right) Lord Jordan of Bournville, Costain's Matthew Gardiner and Tom Mullarkey, the Chief Executive of RoSPA

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