£1.1bn worth of projects bid for glory at region’s engineering awards

Civil engineering projects worth more than £1.1bn are battling it out for prestigious awards from the Institution of Civil Engineers.

The projects vary from road, rail and port infrastructure to water engineering, flood defences, public realm work and a radical design for a major children’s hospital – and range in size from the £400m Liverpool2 development to a £500,000 slope stabilisation project to protect homes beside the River Irwell in Bury.

Darrell Matthews, North West Regional director of the Institution of Civil Engineers, said: “This year’s nominations for the North West Civil Engineering Awards total £1.1 billion of infrastructure investment.

“Together, they reflect the North West’s huge importance to the UK economy, as well as showcasing the breadth of civil engineering skill – with road and rail bridges, a port development, a motorway, a tramway and a busway, flood defences and water infrastructure plus iconic and innovative building design – much of the engineering that makes modern civilisation possible.

“Every nomination shows something special, and it’ll be really interesting to see which projects have caught the eye of the judges. We’ll find out at our awards dinner at the Blackpool Hilton on Friday (March 10).”

 The North West Civil Engineering Awards are sponsored by GHD.
 
Liverpool is mounting its strongest ever challenge this year, with three huge projects in the running for Large Project of the Year:
 

•  Peel Ports’ £400m Liverpool2 Superport development.
•  WSP Parsons Brinckerhoff’s Alder Hey Children’s Hospital, built by Laing O’Rourke in just 130 weeks and costing £237m.
• The £75m Gladstone Biomass Terminal, built to support the EU’s largest decarbonisation project at Drax’s Selby power station.

Seven projects in Greater Manchester, worth together more than £120m, cover a wide range of civil engineering work from bridges and public transport to public realm improvements and land stabilisation:

• Metrolink’s new Exchange Square Spur – part of Transport for Greater Manchester’s £1.9bn Metrolink expansion – is in the running for Large Project of the Year. The £20m scheme was funded by the European Development Fund and delivered by a project team including WSP Parsons Brinckerhoff, MPact-Thales and Thales Transportation.
• The North West’s first guided busway has also been nominated for Large Project of the Year. The £68m, 4.5-mile busway linking Leigh and Ellenbrook, which now accounts for 50,000 journeys a week, was commissioned by Transport for Greater Manchester working with Atkins, Balfour Beatty and Extrudakerb.
• The £5.5m Orlando Street bridge project in Bolton, up for Medium Project of the Year, was commissioned by Network Rail and designed by Manchester-based Tony Gee and Partners, with Golborne-based J Murphy and Sons as principal contractor.
• Another bridge nominated for Medium Project of the Year is the Lancashire Bridge improvement project in Stockport, a £1.6m scheme which also included public realm improvements, commissioned by Stockport MBC working with Stockport-based Wilde Consultants and Kearsley-based Bethell Construction.
• The £21m St Peter’s Square Public Realm Project, bidding for Large Project of the Year, was delivered by a partnership including Manchester-based companies Arup and Laing O’Rourke.     
• The £4.2m “Reveal the Roch” project is in the running for the Community Award, which recognises civil engineering projects which have gone the extra mile to involve the local community. Its principal designer was Peterborough-based CH2M Hill, and the principal contractor was VBA Ltd of Preston.
• The Forestry Commission’s £500,000 slope stabilisation project in the Irwell Valley in Bury – the smallest entry in the competition – employed Warrington-based Atkins as principal designer and Ashbourne-based Whitehouse Construction as principal contractor, and is bidding for both Small and Medium Project of the Year and the Community Award.
• Network Rail commissioned Manchester-based designers Tony Gee and Partners, and Golborne-based J Murphy & Sons Ltd to demolish and replace Carter’s Bridge in Wigan in a project worth £1.25m.

Cumbria’s challenge, representing more than £100m of investment, includes five very different civil engineering projects:
 

• Cumbria County Council joined forces with Whitehaven-based design consultants Westlakes Engineering and construction company Thomas Armstrong of Maryport to engineer a series of earthwork improvements at seven priority sites around the county, to prevent possible road damage following the prolonged heavy rainfall and flooding of recent years, and posed various challenges to the engineers.
• LLWR Ltd teamed up with Carlisle-based companies AECOM Infrastructure & Environment UK Ltd and Graham Construction to build a new £1.1m reception area for low-level radioactive waste at Drigg to improve security.
• United Utilities Water Plc worked with St Helens-based Coffey Construction Ltd to create UU’s first ever “intelligent” water abstraction site at Swindale, with a “fish pass” which allows the migration of fish and eels.
• Cumbria Local Enterprise Partnership funded the £2.8m Currock Bridge Cycleway Scheme in Carlisle, for Cumbria Council Council working with Altrincham-based designers Mott MacDonald and Carlisle-based Story Contracting.
• The Nuclear Decommissioning Authority worked with Sellafield Ltd on a £90m, five-year project helping to remove the nuclear and environmental risk posed by an ageing radioactive waste silo.

Cheshire’s contenders are mostly smaller projects, but with a total value of well over £30m:
 

• Flood defences commissioned by the Environment Agency in Northwich and Warrington help protect homes and businesses, involving Salford-based Jacobs Engineering Group, Chester-based companies Galliford Try and Black and Veatch, and VBA, a joint venture involving three of the country’s leading contractors VolkerStevin, Boskalis Westminster and Atkins.
• A £15m United Utilities scheme to protect the quality of a local watercourse in Widnes involved Liverpool-based Mouchel as principal designer and KMI (Kier, Murphy and Interserve) as principal contractor.
• Network Rail teamed up with Golborne-based J Murphy & Sons Ltd to give a £7m facelift to the 520-metre-long Twemlow Viaduct in Holmes Chapel, originally built in 1841 and needing 68,000 bricks replaced.

There are five projects from Lancashire, worth altogether £176m, including three in Blackpool where the award winners will be announced at a black-tie dinner at the Blackpool Hilton on Friday (10 March):
 

• The £1.5m Princess Street bridge replacement project, bidding for Medium Project of the Year, was commissioned by Blackpool Borough Council with Stockport-based Wilde Consultants as principal designer and Bolton-based AE Yates as principal contractor, using an innovative approach to replace the bridge which carries Seasider’s Way, bringing much of the tourist traffic into the town.
• United Utilities has two Blackpudlian shots at Large Project of the Year with its water engineering projects at Anchorsholme and Harrowside totalling £32m investment, working with Wirral-based Land & Marine Engineering Ltd, Glasgow-based CH2M and Preston-based VolkerStevin.
• The £140m Bay Gateway included the M6-Heysham motorway link and the magnificent new Lune West Bridge, commissioned by Lancashire County Council working with Maidenhead-based Costain and Salford-based Jacobs.
• A £3.3m flood defence scheme at the Wrangling in Blackburn is up for Medium Project of the Year, commissioned by the Environment Agency working with VBA Ltd and Black and Veatch.