The biggest road upgrade scheme in the UK has been recognised with the highest honour at this year’s Considerate Constructors Scheme’s National Ultra Site Awards. The joint venture from Costain, Balfour Beatty and Skanska for Highways England, won the coveted ‘2019 Ultra Site of the Year Award’.
The project, which is upgrading a 21-mile section of the major road between Cambridge and Huntingdon and will cut journey times by up to 20 minutes, has been recognised for its top-performance against the Scheme’s Code of Considerate Practice. The Scheme aims to raise standards of how considerate a construction site, company and supplier is across a variety of aspects, covering topics including environment impacted, how it looks after its workforce and supply chain involved in delivering the project and how it tries to limit the impact of its work on those around it.
The aim of Ultra Sites is to achieve ever greater integration of a contractor’s supply chain to meet and exceed the Scheme’s Code of Considerate Practice. Being the highest level of attainment in consideration and best practice, they are the pinnacle of excellence across the construction industry.
The project also triumphed, winning this year’s ‘Collaboration Award’ and the ‘Fairness, Inclusion and Respect Award’. Both award categories recognise the outstanding efforts the site’s team has made in creating a truly collaborative supply chain and one which has created a fair and inclusive environment in which everyone feels their role is integral to the success of the project.
Pam Hobson, Stakeholder Director at the A14 Integrated Delivery Team said: “We put the spirit of the Considerate Constructors Scheme into everything we do, inspiring people along the way and opening their eyes about what, as an industry, we really have to offer.
“Ultra Sites are setting exceptional standards and positively influencing the whole construction industry. The A14 was the first road project to be accredited as an Ultra Site, and to be recognised as the best is very special indeed.”
Considerate Constructors Scheme Chief Executive Edward Hardy said: “Ultra Sites represent a real turning point for the construction industry, by providing a way for the industry to work more collaboratively and realise the benefits of this greater integration for their workforce, community and environment.”
