A project commissioned by Cumbria County Council has scooped a prestigious accolade at this year’s National Constructing Excellence Awards, the lead organisation for construction in the UK.
The county council’s new, state-of-the-art school building for Sandside Lodge School in Ulverston, was named overall winner in the Health, Safety and Wellbeing category of the 2019 National Constructing Excellence Awards.
The £8.6m new school was built for the county council by main contractor Seddon and has created a purpose-built, 80-place special school with modern teaching facilities for children with severe learning needs.
Ed Wootton, Regional Director at Seddon, said: “This win acknowledges just how important the new facility will be in providing an improved learning environment to support the health, safety and wellbeing of all who use it.
“Incorporating the county’s Special Educational Needs and Disabilities service will enable the site to become a Centre of Excellence for Autism, helping more families than ever before. Giving more young people the chance to thrive is the true measure of this project’s success and this award recognises the work of the incredible team behind it.”
Cumbria County Council was also highly commended in the Client of the Year award category of the Awards for our Infrastructure Recovery Programme (IRP), established in partnership with Mott MacDonald following Storm Desmond to repair, rebuild and reinstate damaged infrastructure. The £120m IRP programme consists of approximately 1,200 individual projects delivered over a four-year period.
Stephen Hall, Assistant Director, Economy and Environment, Cumbria County Council, said: “It’s fantastic that two county council projects have been recognised in these prestigious national awards which celebrate the very best in the UK construction industry. The brilliant new building for Sandside Lodge is already making a world of difference to the lives of pupils at the school, and our IRP team has worked tirelessly to oversee the repair, restoration and rebuild of countless roads, bridges and other infrastructure throughout Cumbria damaged in the devastating 2015 floods.”
David Brown, Projects Director, Mott MacDonald, said: “We’re thrilled to have supported Cumbria County Council over the last four years on their journey to achieving such significant levels of industry recognition. The County Council is now being seen as a model client in the sphere of delivering capital programmes and projects.”
In addition to our success in the National Constructing Excellence Awards, Cumbria County Council was recently recognised in another national awards competition. The council was shortlisted in the Client of the Year category of the Education Estates Awards for the Campus Whitehaven, a £30m project delivered by the county council, which created state-of-the-art new facilities for St Benedict’s Catholic High School and Mayfield Special School. The Education Estates Awards celebrate excellence and achievement in education.
