Award celebrates team effort

Openreach has won a top street works co-ordination award for best practice. It was won in collaboration with a number of utilities companies in recognition of the way they all worked on the ambitious Kinver infrastructure improvement project in Staffordshire.

Together, they were nominated by Staffordshire County Council, whose highways team co-coordinated the high-profile, revitalisation project that took place throughout last summer. Thanks to the way the teams worked together, a project that could have taken 25 weeks if done in isolation took just 12 weeks to complete.
 
This was one of the most complex multi-agency service upgrades ever undertaken in the UK, which saw Openreach, along with electricity, water, gas, street lighting and highways organisations going into the village of Kinver and working as one team, ensuring the whole service upgrade was carried out in one big hit.

In making the nomination, Staffordshire County Council acknowledged the work of Openreach netsolve planner Mark Beatrup, among the list of people involved who made the initiative a success.

“The work involved re-routing a section of the overhead network cable to underground,” Mark explained. “That meant laying ducting and installing a new cable.

“Kinver is a picturesque, rural country village and the work Openreach carried out has now added to its character.”

The award was presented in London at a ceremony hosted by shadow Secretary of State for Transport Teresa Villiers.

Praising all those who contributed to the success of the project, John Wakefield, Staffordshire County Council’s cabinet member for economic regeneration and sustainable communities, said: “We all work together as one – and all our customers win.

“With ever more cables, wires and pipes feeding our increasingly sophisticated world we need to be ever smarter in co-ordinating the maintenance and upgrade of these vital services. It’s great that this fantastic co-operative partnership in Staffordshire is getting recognition on the national stage.” 

Other utilities, nominated for the award, along with Openreach, included Central Networks, EON Energy Services, National Grid and South Staffs Water.