Engineering Excellence Awards

Best Infrastructure Project – Small: Camber Sands Welcome Centre

The Camber Sands Welcome Centre and Public Toilets project delivers essential community and tourist infrastructure at one of the UK’s most popular coastal destinations. Positioned as a gateway to the beach, the development replaces outdated facilities with a resilient, inclusive and architecturally considered building that supports residents, visitors and coastal management operations year-round.

Key features:

• Inclusive and Flexible Infrastructure: Enhanced facilities for coastal officers strengthen lifeguarding, first aid response and beach safety management, directly supporting public health and well-being. Additional female and gender-neutral toilets directly reduce peak-season queuing disparities. Fully compliant accessible cubicles, generous circulation and clear wayfinding promote dignity and independence.
• Structural Engineering Approach: Rather than demolishing and rebuilding, the scheme reuses and extends the existing asset, reducing embodied carbon.
• Civil and Environmental Resilience: Permeable pavements reduce flood risk by allowing infiltration while filtering wind-blown sand from blocking drainage systems.
• Operational Benefits: Enhanced facilities for coastal officers strengthen lifeguarding, first aid response and beach safety management, directly supporting public health and well-being.

Best Infrastructure Project - Large: Royal Sovereign Lighthouse Decommissioning

Herbosch-Kiere removed the end-of-life offshore Royal Sovereign Lighthouse infrastructure (a well-known East Sussex landmark) through a controlled, assured marine methodology compliant with CDM 2015. They used a defined DNV-based design basis for marine operations, lifting and temporary works. The lantern tower was preserved for a maritime heritage centre in Bexhill-on-Sea.

Objectives and scope:

• De-risk an ageing offshore structure through safe removal of major elements,
• Protect the marine environment through pollution prevention and licensed waste routing.
• Deliver high-consequence lifts and marinoie interfaces under defined weather/sea-state gates.
• Enable a positive legacy through the lantern tower’s preservation for Bexhill Maritime’s planned Maritime Coastal Environment Centre.

Phase 1:

• Removal of lantern tower and topside using a 1000t jack-up barge and Gulliver heavy lift vessel with 4,000t lift capability.
• Bespoke temporary topside support and lifting system designed, fabricated and installed to support the topside during cutting and controlled release from the supporting pillar prior to lifting and sea-fastening for transport.

Phase 2:

• Removal of post-tensioned concrete pillar by diamond wire cutting into nine sections,
• Installation of lifting trunnions by divers within tight slack-tide work windows.
• Lifting via JB119 1,000t jack-up barge with 300t crane.
• Transfer to flat-top barge for transit to Shoreham Port.
• Shoreham offload and demolition.

Best Project – Innovation: A31 New Ocknell Culvert Digital Bat Survey

The A31 New Ocknell Culvert Digital Bat Survey represents a pioneering multidisciplinary innovation delivered by Jacobs on behalf of National Highways. The work was commissioned in 2024 via the National Highways Scheme Delivery Framework (SDF), ahead of planned maintenance works scheduled in 2026. The project focused on developing a safe, efficient and high fidelity method for undertaking ecological and structural surveys within a hazardous culvert environment. The culvert, located in the New Forest, is approximately 100 metres long, carries Highland Water beneath the A31, and lies within a region that supports 14 of the UK’s 18 native bat species. Conventional manual-entry survey techniques were deemed unsuitable due to extreme confined space risks, cold flowing water, remote location and long emergency response times.

A traditional winter hibernation bat survey would have required multiple site visits and in person access which posed unacceptable safety risks and substantial logistical burden. Instead, Jacobs designed and deployed a fully remote, sensor integrated survey solution, drawing together expertise in Ecology, Surveying & Reality Capture, and Health & Safety. A dual platform Remotely Operated Vehicle (ROV) system, comprising a tracked vehicle for shallow, corrugated sections and a small survey boat for deeper water, was equipped with thermal imaging, high powered optical cameras, and dynamic laser scanning capability. This enabled complete internal inspection and ecological assessment without requiring any personnel to enter the culvert.

By combining cutting-edge technology with cross disciplinary expertise, the Ocknell Culvert Survey sets a new benchmark for safe, sustainable and data driven ecological monitoring within high risk civil engineering environments, offering a transformative approach poised for adoption across the South East and wider UK strategic road network.

Best Project – Sustainability: Twyford Footbridge Replacement

The Twyford Bridge project is a landmark example of low‑carbon, sustainable infrastructure delivered on an exceptionally constrained and environmentally sensitive site. Working in partnership, Mackley and the Environment Agency delivered a new lightweight fibre‑reinforced polymer (FRP) bridge to replace an ageing structure that could no longer be safely used. Traditional construction methods were ruled out early because the site could not accommodate heavy plant, extensive foundations or vehicle access. Instead, the team developed an innovative, low‑impact solution that reduced carbon, protected the river environment and respected the constraints of the floodplain.

The new FRP bridge deck contains 7m³ of recycled PET foam – equivalent to roughly 11,000 plastic bottles – giving the structure verified circular‑economy value. The selection of FRP and carbon reinforcement produced a thinner, lighter deck, which in turn allowed the access ramps to be shortened by 20% and reduced the need for imported fill. These design efficiencies helped avoid overloading the riverbank and significantly cut material‑related carbon.

The resulting bridge provides a robust, resilient crossing with a 100‑year design life and zero structural maintenance. Unlike steel structures, it requires no repainting cycles, avoiding repeated access, machinery and emissions over the decades ahead. Close collaboration between the Environment Agency and Mackley ensured the final design met technical, environmental and operational needs while maximising sustainability benefits at every stage.

Best Project – Asset Resilience: Dover Berth 9 Life Extension

The Port of Dover has 6 operational roll-on roll-off ferry berths which operate 24/7, 364 days of the year. They have a rolling programme of maintenance across berths, both cyclical operational maintenance and much larger significant capital replacement / life extension projects. Both Dover Berth 8 and 9 main hoisting hydraulic cylinders were installed 20 years ago and have not been overhauled since then.

Key elements of the scope included:

• Replace the main hoisting cylinders, which are at the end of their design life, as they are critical for lifting the Linkspan bridges and pedestrian walkways.
• Refurbish the deck-separation cylinders which actively support the loads of the upper Linkspan bridge.
• Refurbish Dover Berth 9’s main hoisting cylinders for reuse on Berth 8, addressing safety risks and long lead times.
• Overhaul the linkspan fingers to ensure safe vehicle transfers between bridges and vessels.
• Carry out compliance works to standardise operations and minimise errors increasing operational safety.

Key benefits of the project:

• Prevents against additional interim maintenance and inflation increases if we defer the work for two further years at a value of circa £640,000.
• Maintains safe and reliable assets.
• Prolongs the asset lifespan which enables continued revenues into the future,
• The compliance and system upgrades ensure safe use of the berths, with good value in continuing to maintain operational health and safety risks to as low as reasonably practicable.
• Suitably prolonging the assets’ life creates further value from extending the utilisation of their embodied carbon and energy.
• The approach enabled the Dover Berth 9 priority works ensuring safe and reliable operation of the asset. Procuring long lead items early for future works improves the value of the future works through free issue to future projects.

Team of the Year: Twyford Footbridge Replacement

The Twyford Marina Footbridge project set out to replace a failing pedestrian bridge at Yalding, ensuring the safety of users, maintaining the continuity of the Medway Valley Walk, and improving navigational access to Twyford Marina.

Principal inspections carried out in 2021 and 2022 identified extensive deterioration, including spalling concrete, corroded reinforcement, longitudinal pier cracking and concerns regarding both primary and secondary structural elements. With the bridge at the end of its operational life, the project’s primary objective was to design and construct a modern, resilient replacement.

Additional objectives included providing a wider and taller navigation channel for vessels and delivering the works by Spring 2024 in alignment with the Medway Navigation Full Business Case. Delivering the project on an exceptionally constrained riverside site required an adaptive, low-impact and highly innovative engineering approach.

Traditional solutions, such as a reinforced concrete deck with deep foundations, were quickly ruled out due to the need for heavy plant, significant material imports and intrusive access routes across the floodplain. Instead, the team adopted a lightweight fibre-reinforced polymer (FRP) bridge deck manufactured from recycled plastic.