UK: VolkerStevin Wins Awards at CEEQUAL

VolkerStevin, in conjunction with Carillion, Halcrow and Glasgow City Council, has received two highly commended awards for the White Cart Water Flood Prevention Project at the CEEQUAL Outstanding Achievement Awards.

The project was highly commended in the categories of ‘Relations with the Local Community and other Stakeholders’, and ‘Ecology and Biodiversity’.

The White Cart Water Project has significantly reduced the risk of flooding to businesses and over 1,750 properties in the south of Glasgow, avoiding potential flood damages in excess of £100 million.

Relations with the local community and other stakeholders were of high importance throughout the length of the project. Through one-to-one discussions and extensive public liaison, the views and opinions of affected parties were gathered by the project team and taken into account during the design process. Where possible the design of the project was amended to suit the community’s wishes. The community was also actively involved in the alignment of the flood defence wall to minimise impacts on property boundaries and access to the river. This involvement continued during the construction phase, where design changes requested by the community were still considered and implemented.

Commenting on why the project was highly commended in the ‘Relations with the Local Community and other Stakeholders’ category, the judges said: “The team demonstrated a high level of engagement with a very wide range of stakeholder and community groups. It is clear that this dialogue was sincere and included discussions on fundamental aspects of the project. This approach resulted in excellent community relations and clearly demonstrates the benefits of collaborative working.”

The development of the flood alleviation scheme commenced using the principle that in order to rectify the issue of flooding the team needed to find the root cause of the problem. The project consisted of two separate schemes; an urban scheme, which addressed the immediate flood problem areas by increasing protection and a flood storage scheme, which reduced the amount of water reaching the urban section.

The scheme included three rural flood storage areas and thirty eight urban flood defences. These areas created an opportunity to enhance biodiversity through the formation of new wildlife habitats. New habitats were built, comprising of new woodlands and over 90,000 square metres of diverse species-rich wet grasslands, shallow scrapes and ponds, as well as artificial badger setts and otter holts, and the erection of many bird and bat boxes.

Commenting on the ‘Ecology and Biodiversity’ category, the judges said: “So often achievement of the flood prevention objective of a project such as this becomes all-consuming at the expense of other environmental factors. However, in this case the design of the culverts focused on maintaining and enhancing species mobility. It is clear that a great deal of thought went into the ecology and biodiversity aspects of this project.”

CEEQUAL recognises projects which have gone above accepted standards to improve sustainability in civil engineering and the public realm. The White Cart Water Project was awarded an Excellent CEEQUAL assessment rating, with a whole project score of 76.5%.

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Press Release, April 29, 2013