26 November 2014

The Costain-built Walton Bridge has won the ‘Best Practice’ category in this year’s British Construction Industry Awards.

Project Manager Andrew Bannister, Costain colleagues and members of the team from designers Atkins and client Surrey County Council were on hand to accept the prize at the prestigious annual event, held at London’s Grosvenor House Hotel.

With 18 categories, the awards – now in their 27th year – cover every aspect of construction from Building Design of the Year to Product Design Innovation Award.

The Best Practice award goes to a UK project that not only meets the BCIA criteria, but also involved processes to understand and meet client needs; supported team working throughout; and which demonstrated continued improvements.

“When the award was announced, the judges’ comments included a reference that they had been particularly impressed with the team spirit and enthusiasm shown on the project,” said Arran Wharton, who was Design Manager and Deputy Project Manager for the first new road crossing to be built across the River Thames for 20 years.

The judges were impressed by the project and the team behind it: “Tremendous engagement with the community, achieved benefits beyond the job itself…an exemplar of how this should be done,” they commented.

The elegant, £32.4 million ‘thrust arch’ structure, which carries the A244 and which was opened last summer by Secretary of State for Transport Patrick McLoughlin, has already won a spate of awards, including the Institution of Civil Engineers’ Engineering Excellence Thames Valley branch Overall Award and the Built Intelligence NEC3 Contractor of the Year Award.

Walton Bridge was also shortlisted for the evening’s top award, The Prime Minister's Better Public Building Award, as well as for the Civil Engineering Project of the Year (£10m to £50m) and the Health & Safety award.

This was open to any new building project of any size and budget commissioned by or on behalf of central or local government or by a grant-aided organisation which had been completed since 1 January 2013 and had come into use by 31 January 2014.

Commenting on this year’s contenders for the BCI Awards, Mark Hansford, editor of New Civil Engineer magazine and one of the competition’s judging panel, said: “The calibre of this year’s winning projects experience leaves you in no doubt whatsoever that this is an industry that excels.

“It is a proud feature of the awards that every UK shortlisted project gets a visit from our judges and the energy and enthusiasm shown by the project teams was incredible. Their passion for their projects, and the way entire project teams – client, architect, engineer and contractor – frequently came together as one was remarkable. Often, during visits, it was impossible to tell who was the client and who was the contractor, the engineer, the architect. The shared passion for excellence was striking.”

Surrey County Council commented: “The project from start through to delivery was an integrated team approach (Costain/SCC/Atkins) and the local community are proud of the whole team.”

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