News from around Blackwell Earthmoving
We are pleased to share the resounding success of our community engagement event at the Lower Thames Crossing (LTC) - Hole Farm - Volunteer Day Tree Planting, held with Forestry England, LTC and the Balfour Beatty plc Enterprise Partners for LTC. The energy and enthusiasm from everyone in freezing temperatures made it an unforgettable day as we planted 800 trees and shrubs of various species.
We are thrilled to announce that Blackwell Earthmoving has been honoured with the prestigious Best Environmental Sustainability Initiative 2023, for the second year running in the Eiffage Kier Ferrovial BAM (EKFB) Design and Delivery C23 Awards category 👷🏼♂️ #C23Awards23!🎉🌟 This achievement is testament to the hard work, dedication, and innovation of our incredible team.
Receiving this award is in recognition of our company's success and a celebration of the collaborative efforts towards net zero. It reinforces our commitment to reducing carbon emissions and motivates us to deliver exceptional results for our clients and partners.
As we celebrate this achievement, we remain focused on two of our values to be Responsible and Respectful while achieving our net zero targets.
Our Blackwell Training and Legacy Team was also Highly Commended for social value initiatives on the project.
Thank you to everyone who has been part of this incredible journey. We look forward to continuing to positively impact and create lasting value for our clients and the community.
It is fantastic to see this video released by Sizewell C showing the work creating the Marsh Harrier Habitat on the north of the site.
This is yet another example where local and regional firms are already playing their part on this amazing project. Blackwell Earthmoving Limited took on this fascinating task to help create this habitat of wetland and reed bed, and what a result. In no time at all, this habitat will be teeming with life, and local and regional companies will be able to say "we did that".
This project, which has years ahead, is already starting to deliver on its commitments to the regions supply chain, and we will ensure that these commitments go on being delivered for the next 10-12 years, and beyond into operation of Sizewell C
If you are a company from across the 6 counties of our region, then please do get in touch with us and speak to us about how we can help you play a part in this critical infrastructure project
We were delighted to sponsor and support Leiston’s Family Funday on Sunday. Our Volvo A30 attracted lots of attention and vied with the fire engine for star attraction!
Yesterday, Blackwell visited Dartford Crossing Control, with Ashleigh from Lower Thames Crossing, to record an interview for an upcoming video – watch this space!
The purpose of the training is to equip Supervisors and Foremen with practical day-to-day skills to enable them to better manage their teams, and to ensure all employees are treated equally and fairly, whilst maintaining standards and company discipline.
Topics Covered:-
- Fairness, Inclusion and Respect (FIR) for all workers
- Setting standards/expectations
- Gaining respect/trust
- Dealing with challenges
- How and when to escalate a problem
- Dealing with sensitive issues
Congratulations to our first cohort to complete the Management Development Programme. The programme included modules covering coaching and mentoring, disciplinary and grievance processes, customer focus, building engagement and inclusivity, and much, much more. The programme culminated in an outward-bound course to encourage everyone's team-building skills.
Well done to: Megan Skelton, Charles Morgan, Gary Brunskill, John Loukes, Alexandra Mackle, Alex Quinn, Liam Hayton, andrew cardie, Dave Wren, Denise Dodds, Hezekiah Aramide, Matthew Baker, Michael Oughton, Nick Drage,
#teamworkmakesthedreamwork
Blackwell Earthmoving has set a target to reduce plant idling by 15% in 2023, saving valuable fuel and helping to reduce our carbon footprint. Each month, the best-in-class operators will receive a cash prize.
Pictured below is Niall Fraser, Managing Director, meeting some of the March winners. Niall commented "The breadth of enhanced telematic data now available to us allows us to accurately track idling time and reward those showing the greatest improvement month-on-month. Congratulations to all the winners!"
We are delighted to be part of the Balfour Beatty plc team which is set to deliver the ‘Roads North of the Thames’ package of works for the proposed Lower Thames Crossing, on behalf of National Highways.
Designed to be the greenest road project ever built in the UK, the Lower Thames Crossing will create a new connection under the River Thames, increasing road capacity and easing congestion in the South of England.
This vital piece of new infrastructure will pioneer low-carbon construction methods of the future and see Balfour Beatty, and its partners, inject £500 million into the local economy - stimulating growth and creating thousands of employment opportunities.
Read more: https://lnkd.in/eyvZ6jUq
Blackwell is proud to have attended the Geo-Resilience Conference 2023 as the Platinum Sponsor.
At the conference, our Managing Director, Niall Fraser, presented a paper on Developing the first European Standard on Sustainable Earthworks with Alan Phear of Arup.
To chat with us about our environmental projects and our commitment to sustainable earthworks, please get in touch with Albert Moyo – Head of Preconstruction, at albert.moyo@blackwellearth.co.uk
We were delighted to help towards the fundraising for the restoration of the historic bells at St Andrew's Church, Earls Colne. Below (l-r) shows Val Hartley and Niall Fraser from Blackwell Earthmoving presenting a cheque for £500 to bell ringers Trevor Beadle, Richard Gourlay and Lizzie Gutteridge.
We’re delighted to have been appointed as the earthworks subcontractor to Arcadis for the Marsh Harrier scheme as part of the Sizewell C advance works. The subcontract will run for approximately four months and is to create a new wetland habitat for the marsh harrier north of the SCZ development site. The work includes excavation to facilitate the creation of about 5.4ha of environmentally high-quality wetland habitat comprising a mosaic of wet reedbeds, open water and lowland ditch habitat in a single groundwater-fed basin that supports wetland plant and animal species.
Marsh Harriers - Aldhurst Farm Similar Project by Blackwell
Plant deliveries to the SZC Marsh Harrier Earthworks Site
Up to 100 archaeologists familiar with Suffolk soil are combing the county fields where new wetland habitat is going to be created by the Sizewell C project.
The team are almost through the dig and have already uncovered a range of rare discoveries, including a possible Roman saltern (for early salt production), prehistoric pottery, and the remains of a previously unknown medieval building.
In November, we appointed a new Commercial Director, Matt Carney, to head up our commercial department.
Matt will help drive the business forward whilst developing the commercial strategies for our projects.
Matt has over 30 years of experience in civil engineering projects in the UK, the Middle East, and South Africa, most recently, as Commercial Director for Jackson Civil Engineering Group, responsible for all post-contract commercial activities. Before this, Matthew spent several years in the Middle East on large scale projects as Commercial Manager and Managing Quantity Surveyor.
Our team on a large infrastructure project in Aylesbury is also rapidly expanding. We also held a careers day at Loughborough University to advise graduates of what we offer. We attracted 75 interested students from varied backgrounds in engineering, quantity surveying and construction management.
If you are interested in joining our rapidly expanding teams, please refer to our Careers page or email recruitment@blackwellearth.co.uk
Blackwell, has been appointed by the EKFB JV to carry out earthworks on part of the HS2 project.
The appointment follows Blackwell's 2018 engagement by the EKFB team as an advance works contractor and falls on the ninth anniversary of Blackwell's association with the HS2 programme in a professional services capacity.
The subcontract appointment is for 30km of the HS2 earthworks centred on Aylesbury in Buckinghamshire and involves the movement of nearly 15 million cubic meters of chalk and clay over the next four years. The award is the largest in Blackwell's 65 year history.
Commenting on the appointment, Roger McDowell, the Chairman of Hargreaves, said: 'This is an excellent new award for our specialist earthworks business. HS2 is a significant high profile infrastructure project and the Board is pleased that this underpins the Blackwell business over the next few years.'
Please see Hargreaves Services plc RNS.
Note: EKFB JV is a joint venture comprising Eiffage, Kier, Ferrovial Construction and BAM Nuttall which has been appointed by HS2 Limited to complete the C2/C3 section of the HS2 Phase 1 project. Further details can be found at www.EKFB.com.
After 65 years in the Coggeshall Road offices in Essex, BEL have relocated to new facilities on the nearby Earls Colne Business Park.
The new office details are:
Blackwell Earthmoving Ltd, Suite 2 Park House, Earls Colne Business Park, Earls Colne, Essex CO6 2NS
Niall Fraser and Richard Austin are pleased to be guest speakers at the TRL Off-Highway Automation Safety online seminar on Thursday 29 April 2021, 13:00-16:00.
They will be showcasing the Automated Articulated Dumptruck trial that Blackwell undertook on the A14 in 2019.
Blackwell part of triumphant team at 2020 Ground Engineering Awards.
We’re very proud to have been part of the BSI-led team that has just been awarded the prestigious Editor’s Award at this year’s Ground Engineering Awards. The award recognises the ten years of effort from a pan-Industry team comprising earthworks experts from Arup, Atkins, Mott MacDonald, Wood, Aecom, Geofirma, CSSL, D Norbury, Jacobs and Cantab Consulting as well as Blackwell’s Niall Fraser which culminated in the publication of the first European Standard for Earthworks last year.
In presenting the award at a virtual ceremony attended by over 500 guests, the judges noted the “Hard work & dedication of unsung heroes with exceptional experience in earthworks” and said that “The collaboration displayed by this submission epitomises the meaning of ‘team’.”
Listen to Director Niall Fraser talk to Peter Haddock about Blackwell and the Industry for Earthmovers magazine:
September 2020 saw us welcome back two of our sponsored graduates to the business following the completion of their university studies.
If you would like more information about our graduate scheme, or want more information about how you can get involved, click here.
ADT Automation
During our time working on the Cambridge to Huntingdon Improvement Scheme (the A14), we collaborated with Highways England to secure designated innovation funding to develop automation capability for dump trucks, the results of which featured on the BBC’s The One Show. These technologies present great opportunities for efficiencies, but more importantly to continually improve the safety of the activities we conduct on site.
Highways England’s press release on the topic is available at:
https://www.gov.uk/government/news/15-year-vision-set-to-revolutionise-construction