The South Devon Highway, which was opened to the public a year ago, has won yet another award. The link road has attracted the attention of the construction community around the country, and has now won the Community Engagement Award at the British Construction Industry awards.
The event in London was attended by the project team, which includes Devon County Council, Torbay Council, WSP Parsons Brinckerhoff, construction company Galliford Try and its designer Ramboll. The event is known as the most prestigious of its kind for the built environment in the UK.
Gordon Oliver, mayor of Torbay, said “This is brilliant news for the project and is well deserved. We know the community engagement activities, including the setting up of a community liaison group, all helped to keep people informed of activity on the project and helped it to progress smoothly.”
The project team expressed the efforts made to include the community with Galliford Try project director Chris Hastings saying “The award is a tribute to the huge effort made by the team.”
Work on the 5.5km dual carriageway began in 2012, and was opened for use in 2015. The project team say that the road removes 95% of traffic away from the village of Kingskerswell, and has also created nearly 8,000 jobs in South Devon.
This is not the first award scoop for the £110million project, with two Institute of Civil Engineering regional awards, an Institute of Highway Engineers award, a gold Considerate Constructors award, a regional Chartered Institution of Highways and Transportation South West award, and a gold Green Apple award for its environmental activities all included in its accolades to date.
