Speller Metcalfe celebrates a record awards season
Building contractor Speller Metcalfe is celebrating following record successes at the recent Constructing Excellence (CE) and Construction News Awards this month.
The Malvern-based firm took home the top awards for Building Project of the Year at both the East and West Midlands CE Awards, as well as winning the <£20m Project of the Year category at the national Construction News awards.
The Constructing Excellence (CE) awards showcase excellence in the built environment, driving forward positive change in the construction industry and promoting the benefits of collaborative working. Eight regional award ceremonies are held each year across England and Wales, with the winners from each event moving forward to a national final.
At the CE East Midlands awards, Speller Metcalfe made a clean sweep in all four categories they were nominated for – Building Project of the Year, Innovation, People Development and Conservation & Regeneration – as well as being presented with the prestigious ‘Winner of Winners’ award. All of the wins were for the redevelopment of Derby Silk Mill into the new Museum of Making, with each category independently assessed over a two stage judging process involving written applications and interviews.
A week later the CE West Midlands event proved a similarly successful night, with Speller Metcalfe again winning Building Project of the Year, this time for Cyber Quarter – Midlands Centre for Cyber Security. The project was also named joint winners in the Integrated & Collaborative Working category alongside another of Speller Metcalfe’s schemes, the Black Country & Marches Institute of Technology for Dudley College of Technology.
Both Derby Silk Mill and the Institute of Technology are paving the way for a new model of procurement as both the UK’s second and third Integrated Project Insurance (IPI) schemes, the first – Advance II – also completed by Speller Metcalfe.
Across residential, education, healthcare and conservation projects, the business has won five regional Constructing Excellence awards for Integration & Collaborative Working in the last ten years, as well as winning in the national finals for Advance II in 2018.
They have also won three regional CE People Development awards in the last three years, with further awards for BIM, health and safety, heritage and sustainability secured along the way.
“Being recognised for any of our projects is incredibly special, but it’s made even more poignant when this is reflected over a span of 10 years, validating the consistency, dedication and incredibly hard work that our project teams put in,” said Adrian Speller, technical director at Speller Metcalfe.
He continued: “Following on from three lockdowns and months of disruption – where some projects shut down for weeks at a time – every contractor in our industry, small and large, has felt the reverberations of the pandemic. It’s been incredibly humbling to see site teams, clients, consultants and communities come together to get these projects over the line. Every project is a collaborative one and we should be hugely proud of ourselves as an industry for the work we have achieved together.”
Each winning scheme will now move forward to the Constructing Excellence National awards later this year.
Alongside their latest regional successes, Derby Silk Mill also scooped the coveted Project of the Year (<£20m) title at the national Construction News awards, where Speller Metcalfe was also nominated in a further two categories, including the highly anticipated ‘Outstanding Contribution to Industry’.
Derby Silk Mill is also shortlisted for ‘Refurbishment Project of the Year’ at the prestigious Building Awards in November.
