A £20 million scheme being delivered by Team Van Oord in East Sussex has been presented with the 2015 Environment Agency Exemplar Award.
The Environment Agency Exemplar Award is presented annually to recognize outstanding health, safety and environmental performance in the delivery of its projects. A maximum of one award is made in any year and, if no projects are deemed to have performed in an exemplar manner, no award is given.
The 2015 award has been presented to Team Van Oord’s Broomhill Sands Coastal Defense Scheme as a result of the excellent health, safety and environmental behaviors and performance exhibited during the course of the project, and the proactive approach to managing the general public on a busy tourist and recreational beach.
The trophy was presented to the site team, represented by Team Van Oord’s Steve Towell, by Paul Mustow, the Environment Agency’s Deputy Director for Capital Delivery.
This is the second time in the past three years the Environment Agency Exemplar Award has gone to a Team Van Oord scheme. In 2013 it was awarded to the £18m Steart Peninsular project adjacent to the Severn Estuary. The project comprised the construction of a major wetland habitat area and associated flood defenses, as part of the Environment Agency’s overall environmental offset scheme for other estuary works.
The Broomhill Sands scheme includes: improving a 700m length of shingle beach by recharging the existing beach; removing the existing timber groynes and constructing eight new 54m groynes to stabilize the beach and retain the beach material; and constructing a 1,700m length of rock revetment and wave wall along the remainder of the frontage.
The works commenced in August 2014 and are scheduled for completion in December 2015.