Bire news winter 2007 - Birse Civils Ltd

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04 BIRSENEWS Fantastic partnership coasts to By Carl Green, Principal Engineer with Wyre Borough Council’s Coastal and Engineering Team Wyre Borough lies on the Fylde coast of Lancashire. The Fylde headland is located on the north west coast of England, at the south-western end of Morecambe Bay. The River Wyre estuary runs along the eastern edge of the headland, with coastal waters to the north and west. The headland is a low-lying urbanised area that is particularly vulnerable to flooding from both 24.4km of tidal frontages and 14.6km of urban watercourses.
success “I have developed very strong links with many of the Birse Coastal staff.” The team in which I work is responsible for maintaining the borough’s 8.25km of coastal defences from the boundary with Blackpool Council and Cleveleys to the ferry dock at Fleetwood. As well as looking at the way coastal defences, tidal river defences and land drainage systems should be managed in the future, the team carries out works throughout the year to maintain the various flood defences. For the last five years, most of my time has been devoted to the council’s flagship, new coastal protection and environmental scheme at Cleveleys. At a cost of £20 million, it is the council’s largest single project and the first ever undertaken under a formal partnering agreement. For such an important scheme, the council took a completely new approach to procuring a contractor. We adopted the principles of Constructing Excellence and used an extensive, three-stage quality assessment procedure. Birse Coastal came top of this assessment procedure and that was the beginning of the council’s relationship with them. In 2004, Birse Coastal was formally appointed as preferred contractor under an ECC Option C (Target Cost) contract. To maximise benefit from Birse’s extensive coastal experience, we engaged them on a tenmonth early contractor involvement period to assess design buildability, develop a competitive target cost and assess innovation and value engineering options for the scheme. BIRSENEWS 05 During this time, I have developed very strong links with many of the Birse Coastal staff. All the team, from top to bottom, have been a credit to Birse Coastal and, without exception, have done extra work to make this project a success. Andrew Mason, whose ability to develop trust and teamwork with all who come into contact with him, is particularly admired. Andrew has developed not just the whole team, both Birse and Wyre staff, but also the local community. He makes it happen, with the minimum of fuss. Jonathan Kay has provided more than QS services. His commercial acumen and desire to get the best for the team, (even if it does cause him yet more sleepless nights) is greatly appreciated. Jonathan always puts in the extra effort to meet the client’s demands. He really has driven best value for the project right from the start. Dave Fazakerly’s attention to detail is of the highest order. He is both conscientious and always put in the extra effort to complete tasks properly. Chloe Darley has developed with the project, leading from the front at reception to being the community champion. Chris Lavelle makes a terrible cup of tea but is always there with a friendly welcome and his Friday brunch is legendary. Off-site support has always been provided by Caroline Mottram, whose ability to find the right words for articles and competition submissions, has made all the difference in the national recognition that the project has found. The Cleveleys scheme was formally opened to the public in April 2008 and the council is absolutely delighted with both the service and product delivered by Birse Coastal. They have been fantastic partners; easy to work with and they really listened to us and understood what we wanted to achieve. They were very considerate to the local community and did everything possible to minimise impact and disruption. This isn’t just our opinion at the council, it’s been recognised by the wider industry as well. The scheme has won numerous awards, including the Regional Monitor Excellence Awards 2007, two Considerate Constructor Scheme Awards, the British Safety Council International Safety Award, as well as merits in partnering and sustainable construction from the Local Government Awards and the British Construction Industry Awards. The scheme was so successful that we have just employed Birse Coastal again to do some advance works for another scheme that we will be working on later this year.
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Bire news winter 2007 - Birse Civils Ltd

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