Technical

CMYA 2021 – Public & Leisure

GOLD: Shaun Burrows MCIOB – Willmott Dixon

Project: Delamere Forest Visitors Centre, Northwich, Cheshire
Scope: Construction of welcome hub, completed in 75 weeks
Client: Forestry England
Contract: NEC, option A
Value: £9.6m

On this huge, 100,000 sq m site, Shaun Burrows did extensive research into the landscape and ground conditions to minimise the project’s environmental impact. With several protected species, he delivered regular onsite watching briefs and collaborative toolbox talks.

Other finalists

Christian Clues MCIOB  BAM Construction, King’s Cross Sports Hall
Mark Gibson MCIOB  ISG Construction, Chester Fire Station
Andy Howarth MCIOB  Willmott Dixon, Rochdale Riverside
Dafydd Morris  Willmott Dixon, The Foodworks SW, Weston-super-Mare
Paul Purser  Kier Construction Regional Western and Wales, PDev Physical Training Centre Dartmouth

To deal with the flooding potential created by poor ground conditions, Shaun installed a rainwater harvesting tank to recycle surface water for toilet flushing. He value-engineered the cut and fill and changed from a traditional slab to a raft foundation to reduce substructure works. Shaun changed the original tarmac specification to a more durable, hardwearing product for heavily trafficked areas – at no extra cost.

Although the new kitchen was designed, manufactured and installed by others, he did not simply sit back and watch the client’s subcontractor – instead stepping in to assist with the design and programming.

And when, at a very late stage, the water utility announced it couldn’t guarantee that the pressure of a new water main would be high enough for firefighting, Shaun carried out extensive research to find a temporary solution to prevent handover delay – and eventually succeeded in securing a permanent system from a specialist supplier.


SILVER: Robert Sankey – Greater Manchester Police 

Project: Specialist Operations Centralised Hub, Manchester
Scope: Construction of three-storey police operations building, completed in 91 weeks
Contract: JCT 2016, with quantities
Value: £7.7m

The success of this project owed much to Robert Sankey’s decision to construct the dedicated road from the new complex early to give direct access to the site, eliminating a vast amount of security vetting. This in itself was a complicated civil engineering scheme, cutting through a retaining wall with a steep gradient to street level.

Robert futureproofed the main building by constructing its flat roof to the same specification as the floors, extending the stairwells and lift shafts to roof level, and strengthening the foundations and frame to take a prefabricated fourth-storey block in the future.

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