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IHE Mercia Branch Awards 2024

Thursday 18th April 2024 | Macdonald Burlington Hotel | Birmingham | B2 4JQ

Showcasing the collective and individual achievements of highway engineers and engineering nationwide

The Institute of Highway Engineers (IHE) Mercia Branch was delighted to welcome 180 guests to their Awards Evening, which was hosted at the Macdonald Burlington Hotel in Birmingham on Thursday 18^th April 2024. The Awards Evening was kindly supported by our headline sponsor: The Severnside Group and featured an entertaining after dinner speech from the much loved British singer, Toyah Wilcox.

Our Awards Evening recognises and celebrates the outstanding work of teams and individuals across the transport planning and highways industry. This included a new Judge’s Merit Award, to recognise a project and / or organisation(s) that are commendable and worthy of special recognition.

Following some pre-meal networking, Martin Polland – IHE President – provided a fantastic speech that poignantly summarised the challenges and opportunities facing the highways and transport industry. This was followed by Toyah Wilcox who provided an entertaining after dinner speech, taking us through her experiences of working in the music industry, some of her career highlights and performed a number of her favourite hits from over the years.

The IHE Mercia Branch invited entries across eight categories. All entries were voluntarily reviewed and scored by our expert judging panel: Steve Spender Chief Executive of the IHE, Katharine Kelly from Arcadis, Jim Golby from Applied Driving Techniques, Rebecca Bollen from 4 Ways Consulting and Darren Capes, ITS Policy Lead at Department for Transport and Junior Vice President of the IHE. The Branch are very grateful to each judge for volunteering their time – a huge thank you again from all of us.

Each of the award categories were kindly sponsored by seven category sponsors listed alongside our Winners and Highly Commended submissions below.

Category	Sponsor	Winner
Large Project of the Year		Wolverhampton City Centre Public Realm Phase 1 & 3 City of Wolverhampton Council, Amey and Taylor Woodrow
Small Project of the Year		Dale End Flood Alleviation Telford & Wrekin Council, Balfour Beatty Living Place and McPhillips
Environmental Sustainability Project of the Year		Mobile Recovery and Production of Gully Waste into Topsoil Amey Highways
Safety and Innovation Project of the Year		Wolverhampton City Centre Public Realm Phase 1 & 3 City of Wolverhampton Council, Amey and Taylor Woodrow
Sustainable Transport Project of the Year		Market Street Revitalisation, Wellington Telford & Wrekin Council, Balfour Beatty Living Places, GN Groundworks, Tarmac, Severn Partnership, Swarco and WJ.
Highway Partnership Award		A12 Chelmsford to A120 Widening Scheme Costain Jacobs Partnership Costain, Jacobs and National Highways
Team of the Year		Levelling Up East Lancashire: Creating opportunities through greener, safer and healthier travel Lancashire County Council, Jacobs, AtkinsRéalis, and partners
Judge’s Merit Award		Social Value Team – Journey to Work Amey, Staffordshire County Council, South Staffordshire District Council, Wolverhampton Job Centre, Hays recruitment, RMS, Staffordshire employability team and Staffordshire Care leavers team.

The IHE Mercia Branch would like to congratulate all of our Winners who are all very worthy of their Awards.

Throughout the course of the evening, the IHE Mercia Branch was also raising money for RedR who provide training and technical support to communities responding to natural & man made disaster globally. Through selling raffle tickets and the generosity of everyone in the room, we were able to raise just shy of £1,000. Thank you to everyone for your support.

Finally, the IHE Mercia Branch Committee would like to thank all of our category sponsors for their support, as well as all the organisations who submitted entries and attended. Without you, this event would not be possible.

An official photographer was also present during the evening and all photographs from the Awards Evening will be available on this page shortly.