VolkerStevin wins Centenary Award for the Mytholmroyd scheme

VolkerStevin, as part of VBA – a joint venture between VolkerStevin, Boskalis Westminster and SNC-Lavalin’s Atkins business has been awarded the Centenary Award at the ICE Yorkshire and Humber Civil Engineering Awards 2022, for its work on the Mytholmroyd Flood Alleviation Scheme in West Yorkshire.

Each year, the ICE Yorkshire and Humber Awards showcase the collective and individual achievements, excellence and innovation of civil engineers and civil engineering.

VBA worked with their client, the Environment Agency, to overcome the challenge of providing 400 properties with protection from the River Calder and Crag Brook in an area previously devastated by flooding.

Recognising how urgently Mytholmroyd needed protecting, the scheme was fast-tracked through the ECI and design stages, with construction commencing within months of the December floods in 2015.

Mark Cronshaw, VolkerStevin Environment Agency account director, said: “We are very proud to have won this prestigious award. We delivered a complex flood alleviation scheme in a restricted urban environment, despite a pandemic and two major storms.”

The new defences were ‘winter ready’ by late 2020. Construction works included the construction of precast concrete floodwalls on either side of the River Calder; installation of steel sheet and concrete bored piles; excavation to increase the river width; building a bridge; accommodating the widened river; digging the river span under the new bridge and demolishing the old bridge.