In Brief: Duke of York visits Sheffield Forgemasters; Regional leaders "encouraged" after meeting with banks; Ramboll WhitbyBird wins engine

HRH The Duke of York, the UK’s Special Representative for International Trade and Investment, made a special visit to Sheffield Forgemasters to recognise the company’s success in international trade and its future investment programme.

Prince Andrew, accompanied by the Lord-Lieutenant of South Yorkshire David Moody, met with directors at the 200-year-old engineering company to discuss Forgemasters’ dynamic global business presence and multi-million pound expansion plans.

His Royal Highness then toured the 64-acre site on Brightside Lane to see the state-of-the-art production processes which keeps Forgemasters at the forefront of global engineering for the power generation and offshore industries.

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REGIONAL Minister Rosie Winterton said that she was “encouraged” after a meeting between regional representatives and banking sector leaders.

The meeting, which took place in Leeds, was to discuss the banks’ role in supporting economic recovery in Yorkshire and Humber.

Despite the positive mood however Ms Winterton said that there was still a long way to go, and that she and regional development agency Yorkshire Forward would continue to have discussions with regional banking representatives on how the impact of national and regional business support measures could be monitored.

“The banks are a vital part of our partnership working in Yorkshire and Humber to help businesses through the economic downturn and plan for recovery.

“Despite obvious short term difficulties, I am confident the Leeds Financial Services Initiative will achieve its aim over three years to maintain and further develop the reputation of the Leeds City Region as a UK centre of excellence for financial and professional services,” she added.

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RAMBOLL WhitbyBird, the Leeds based engineering firm, has received the 2009 Ground Engineering Sustainability Award for its work with British Waterways’ Yorkshire to re-use dredged sediment from Long Sandall, South Yorkshire.
The award is seen as a celebration of the very best in geotechnical and geo-environmental engineering.

Entrants for the Sustainability Award were asked to demonstrate the innovative, unusual, interesting or cutting edge reuse of materials.

Ramboll Whitbybird’s team of environmental engineers set out to establish the most sustainable re-use solution for dredged sediments.

The Yorkshire Business Unit of British Waterways (BW) was due to start dredging canals located in the South Yorkshire region.

However, the Long Sandall dredging site was nearing capacity. British Waterways then hired Ramboll Whitbybird to help develop proposals for re-using the material currently in the Long Sandall lagoons for canal stabilisation works programmed at Great Heck located 17 miles away.