Winners across all award categories were celebrated at a ceremony in Leeds.
The East Leeds Orbital Route (ELOR), the largest project undertaken by Leeds City Council in the past 50 years, has won the Centenary Award at the 68th annual ICE Yorkshire and Humber Awards.
The major dual carriageway took home this prize for projects valued over £5 million.
Other top civil engineering projects recognised at the awards include a canal barrier and flood resilience scheme.
The annual ceremony took place at the Leeds Marriott Hotel on Friday 3 March 2023.
Ten shortlisted projects battled it out for the following awards:
The 68th annual ICE Yorkshire and Humber Awards
Sir John Fowler Award (for studies and research)
The Sir John Fowler Award went to the Hull Blue Green Plan, delivered by Living with Water, Stantec, Yorkshire Water, Hull City Council, East Riding of Yorkshire Council, the Environment Agency, and the University of Hull.
Hull and Haltemprice are situated within a bowl-shaped zone with sloping topography leading to a flat, urban area. This causes rainwater to collect, triggering floods.
Since 2007, there’s been significant investment to reduce these incidents. However, to prepare and adapt to climate change, a collaborative, long-term vision is required.
The Hull Blue Green Plan describes how blue (waterways) and green (vegetated) infrastructure can work together to improve flood resilience while enabling sustainable and healthy lifestyles and providing attractive places to live and work.
Effective place-making will ensure that water is safely managed, stored, moved, and reused to benefit our communities, environment, and society.
Net Zero Award (for projects, studies and research)
The Embsay Water Treatment Works (WTW) Water Quality Investigation delivered by Mott MacDonald Bentley and Yorkshire Water Services took home the Net Zero Award.
Embsay WTW is a 24 Ml/d water treatment site located in the Yorkshire Dales national park and services over 15,000 people in Skipton and surrounding areas.
The scheme’s outline design was to construct new manganese filters, an interstage pumping station, contact tank and startup-to-waste facility to improve water quality and long-term reliability of the water treatment works facility.
By embedding the carbon reduction hierarchy (build nothing/less/clever/efficiently) within project delivery, the project scheme was able to reduce the estimated embodied carbon by 78% from 2189 to 495 TCO2e and reduced operating carbon by 130 TCO2e per annum.
Smeaton Award (for projects valued under £5 million)
The Smeaton Award went to Forge Island Canal Barrier, Rotherham.
It was delivered by Rotherham Metropolitan Borough Council, Pell Frischmann, Jackson Civil Engineering, South Yorkshire Mayoral Combined Authority, ERDF, Environment Agency, Network Rail, KGAL, Ecus, Centregreat, and IMAC.
The canal barrier forms the latest part of the Rotherham Renaissance flood alleviation scheme (FAS).
Its strategy is to reduce risk to existing properties, infrastructure, and employment areas, including highway, rail and tram/train networks that are crucial to the economic prosperity of the borough.
Many of these were severely impacted during and several months after the June 2007 and November 2019 floods.
This canal barrier forms an iconic element of the future regeneration of the town centre by preventing the River Don from flooding the canal and surrounding areas up to a one in 100 year plus climate change event.
Certificate of commendation
A certificate of commendation was awarded to Whitby Wastewater Treatment Works Odour Control and Sludge tanks delivered by Mott MacDonald Bentley, Yorkshire Water Services, and Stantec.
Certificate of excellence
A certificate of excellence was awarded to Roundhay Park Lane CSO – Water Quality Improvement delivered by Mott MacDonald Bentley, JN Bentley, Yorkshire Water Services, Leeds City Council, and Stantec UK.
Centenary Award (for projects valued over £5 million)
The Centenary Award went to East Leeds Orbital Route (ELOR), delivered by Leeds City Council, Atkins, WSP, Balfour Beatty, and Knights Architects.
The scheme consists of 6.8km of new dual carriageway, five new roundabout junctions and six bridges.
It's helping to ease congestion in Cross Gates, Seacroft and Whitkirk while providing links for future building schemes, including a housing development.
ELOR is unique as it was designed to be a place for people to visit, illustrated by the variety of active travel and outdoor amenities.
It boasts of dedicated leisure routes for pedestrians, cyclists and equestrians, three pocket parks with trails and two outdoor gyms.
Certificate of excellence
A certificate of excellence was awarded to Huddersfield Energy and Recycling Facility delivered by Yorkshire Water Services, GHD, J Murphy & Sons (JMS), and Murphy Process Engineering (MPE).
Certificate of excellence
A certificate of excellence was also awarded to Regent Street Flyover delivered by Leeds City Council, WSP Group and Balfour Beatty.
