Member Article

Jones Bros and Wynne Construction scoop top award for marina project

Civil engineering firm Jones Bros and construction company Wynne Construction have together won a top environmental award for their work on a prestigious sailing academy and events centre project.

The North Wales-based businesses were honoured with a sustainability award by the Institution of Civil Engineers (ICE) Wales for their contribution to the Welsh National Sailing Academy and Events Centre at Pwllheli, undertaken on behalf of Gwynedd Council.

Jones Bros and Wynne Construction, received the accolade with partners Gwynedd Council’s YGC (Ymgynghoriaeth Gwynedd Consultancy), Ellis Williams Architects and WYG Consultancy in front of an audience of 250 industry leaders at the ICE Wales Cymru Awards 2016, held recently at the Marriott Hotel in Cardiff.

As a centre of excellence for sail training, the Welsh National Sailing Academy and Events Centre has been designed as a state of the art facility for sailors at all levels of competence and ability.

In addition to the hosting of dinghy events of national and international standard, the facilities will also cater for keelboat events, yachting regattas and other water sport activities.

Bodelwyddan-based Wynne Construction was appointed by Gwynedd Council as principal constructor to construct the sailing academy and events centre, with the new facility housing an events hall, restaurant/café and education training rooms.

Prior to this, Jones Bros worked on site to create new deep berths, mainly for use by visiting yachts and motorboats and built an 80m quay wall enabling access to the marina via a new bridge.

Jones Bros also liaised with Gwynedd Council to identify ways to recycle materials dredged and removed from the new marina basin, as part of its Early Contractor Involvement (ECI) contract. The reclaimed materials were placed within a contained area to create a land reclamation area within the marina, which will be landscaped in time.

Chris Wynne, managing director of Wynne Construction, said: “We are absolutely delighted to be part of this prestigious award and to gain reassurance that the projects we are involved in do have a positive impact on the local and sailing communities. This award also demonstrates that as a responsible business, our ethos to provide added value through innovation and leadership has been successful and I offer my congratulations to the whole team for their effort and enthusiasm in delivering a truly sustainable building.”

Hefin Lloyd-Davies, Jones Bros’ regional manager for the scheme, said: “We are very proud to have worked on this prestigious development and continued our involvement with Pwllheli and Gwynedd. Athough it wasn’t without its challenges, we overcame these by working closely with the client to meet their expectations and we are really pleased with the end result.

“This was very much a joint effort with our partners and the improvements will help to put the centre on the map.”

The £8.9 million National Sailing Academy and Events project is part funded by the European Regional Development Fund through the Welsh Government and Gwynedd Council.

Founded in the 1950s, Jones Bros employs 350 people. It operates across the UK in sectors including construction of waste management facilities, highways and renewable energy projects such as wind farms.

This was posted in Bdaily's Members' News section by Sam Harris .