GKR Scaffolding Ltd have won the coveted Access and Scaffolding Specialist of the Year award at the Construction News (CN) Specialist Awards 2016
London-based NASC members GKR Scaffolding Ltd have just celebrated 21-years in business and have recently created their own in-house GKR Academy. The academy gives employment training opportunities for scaffolding labourers and operatives to progress to management positions within the firm.
GKR have also just celebrated 500,000+ hours without incurring a RIDDOR incident – proving their track record in health and safety.
GKR Scaffolding submitted a CN Specialist Awards application in the access and scaffolding specialist contractor category, focusing on their work on iconic London projects, like the complex and high risk, Bloomberg’s new European headquarters, run by principal contractor Sir Robert McAlpine – London’s first billion pound construction job.
Speaking about the Bloomberg project, GKR Scaffolding Ltd Director, Lee Rowswell said: “We were appointed early to try and unlock the project and solve workable solutions to the client’s demanding ideas. One of the many challenges was to construct a hoist run-off tower that could be moved at any-time to enable the stone cladding to progress on the external façade of the building.
“And as Bloomberg is to be clad in stone and bronze and the bronze is not repairable, GKR made the decision to use a fully tethered system on all scaffolds on the project – giving our client the reassurance that nothing could ever damage the bronze.”
Other key GKR Scaffolding Bloomberg project statistics included:
- 178,836 Man Hours without RIDDOR or Minor Injury
- 3,836 tonnes of scaffold materials on site
- 1,206 aluminium beams to the base of the scenicliftshafts
- 256 deliveries to site with materials out of hours to avoid congestion within the City of London.
Lee and Neil Rowswell, GKR Scaffolding Ltd Directors stated: “It’s a great honour to win this award, which is a tribute to the hard work and dedication of everyone who works at GKR. We would not have been able to achieve this without the engagement of our workforce and their commitment to drive health and safety performance and deliver high standards throughout all stages of the project.
“In the year GKR Scaffolding Limited is celebrating 21 years of excellence in scaffolding, we have been trusted again by our clients to deliver safe, innovative scaffold solutions on time and budget. This award has recognised this achievement and more specifically the work we have been doing with the GKR Academy, our health & safety performance and high rise work.”
In addition to GKR’s Access and Scaffolding category win, St Helens Plant & Chris Sedgeman Scaffolding were shortlisted for the award, with Penzance-based Chris Sedgeman Scaffolding coming in “Highly Commended” runners-up, for their sliding temporary roof work on Lloyds Bank in Bristol and Penzance. And the Cornish company were also nominated for Apprentice of the Year (Dean Fry) and Project of the Year.
The National Access & Scaffolding Confederation (NASC) MD, Robin James said: “We’d like to congratulate GKR Scaffolding Ltd on winning this coveted award, which has, more often than not, historically gone to NASC members. The London firm set themselves very high standards and work on some fantastic high rise projects in the city and beyond. They are worthy winners of the award.
“A special mention must also be made to past winners of the award, Chris Sedgeman Scaffolding, who were ‘Highly Commended’ again, and to St Helens Plant for their nomination. It’s fabulous to see so much support for the work of our contracting and supplier members from the industry and leading construction press. Awards and nominations like this for our confederation members only serve to strengthen our position as the national trade body for the scaffolding and access sector.”
The prestigious awards ceremony – billed by the Construction News as “Celebrating the very best specialist contractors in the UK” – took place on the 24th February at the Hilton Hotel on Park Lane, London.
A Construction News spokesperson said: “We’d like to say congratulations to all our winners and finalists who have made the cut from a bumper crop of excellent entries and to thank all of the companies that took part this year.“
