Wyton team wins ‘green’ award for airfield at end of the world
A ground-breaking project to improve a Falkland Islands’ airfield led by a Defence Infrastructure Organisation (DIO) team based at RAF Wyton has scooped a prestigious environmental award.
The DIO-led project to improve the airfield, which is located over 8,000 miles away from the UK, took just over nine months to complete.Project Shackelton involved the stripping and relaying of the runway and taxiway surfaces at Mount Pleasant Airport, well as the replacement of cabling and lights.
The £18 million project was undertaken by DIO contractors Colas and supervised by consultants Mott MacDonald, with the airfield remaining in use while the work was completed.
Environmentally friendly and sustainable elements of the project included;·
- Providing the local Government with runway scrapings for the resurfacing of civilian roads;·
- Donating pallets for the community projects; and·
- Supporting the British work force by using 54,000 tonnes of locally produced coarse aggregate.
This earned the scheme a 'very good' Civil Engineering Environmental Quality Award from CEEQUAL – an awards organisation for civil engineering, infrastructure and landscaping.
DIO Project Manager Stephen Wilson said: "DIO’s priority is to support our Armed Forces. It's fantastic we managed to achieve this award as we were limited because of the remote nature of the project 8,000 miles away off the tip of South America.
"I'm also really delighted with the project overall. There was close cooperation between the base and Colas. It is a credit to everyone that harmonious relations were maintained and all worked as a team to a common purpose in difficult circumstances."This is the first time the Mount Pleasant Airport has been resurfaced since being constructed in 1985.
Wing Commander John Shields, who was one of the commanding officers at the airport during and after the revamp, added:"Most airstrips are resurfaced every 10 years but because of the amount of use it had, Mount Pleasant was left for 25.
"I was really impressed with how well everyone worked with each other - Colas, Mott MacDonald, the RAF and DIO. That was the key to the success of this project."
Ends
Further information
Press enquiries to: Tony Moran, DIO Press Office: 0121 311 3879 or tony.moran572@mod.uk DIO website: www.mod.uk/dio
Notes to editors
1. The Defence Infrastructure Organisation (DIO) is part of the Ministry of Defence (MOD). It is responsible for managing and maintaining land and properties to meet the current and future needs of the MOD and personnel at home and abroad, and to support current operations.
2. Our work includes providing, supporting and improving: operational units; single living and service family accommodation; training areas and historic military sites. DIO actively manages these to ensure the needs of Defence are met, value for money is achieved, our heritage is protected and to achieve our environmental goals.
3. Project Shackleton involved the use of 13,000 barrels of bitumen, 230 square metres of concrete, 450 transformers and light fittings, 100,000 metres of cable and 40,000 tonnes of asphalt. The work was carried out between August 2010 to May 2011.
4. The project was run by DIO Projects International on behalf of the end user JFC Infrastructure which is responsible for all overseas Permanent Joint Operational Bases (PJOB).