Water projects take out top Wellington Wairarapa prizes

Connecting New Zealand

Water projects take out top Wellington Wairarapa prizes

13 Jul 2023

Water projects took out the top regional prizes at the CCNZ Wellington Wairarapa Branch Annual Gala and Construction Awards, which were held on 8 July.

This year's event saw a record attendance from across the region's civil construction industry, packing out the Harbourside Function Centre for the presentation of the awards and a keynote presentation from MC and motivational speaker Dave Letele.

CCNZ Wellington Wairarapa Branch Chair Noel Sulzberger summed the evening up by saying it was fantastic to have the annual awards event so well supported, and to witness again the on-going application of innovation and technology by the award entrants.

Top honours in the projects under $600,000 category went to Halverson Civil for an impressive and immensely complex project that saw 38 secant piles installed in the centre of a Hutt Valley roundabout, creating a shaft to a depth of nine metres - and at eight metres below the water table - to enable a new ocean outfall at Seaview.

GP Friel took out the award for projects between $600,000-$2.5m with a railway crossing water pipe replacement that saw very successful early contractor engagement and collaboration between the client, contractor and community, with the works carried out with minimal risk and causing minimal disruption to businesses.

Managing Director Gerry Friel said he was immensely proud of what his team had achieved, and it had been a model project.

"The team did an amazing job. Every time I went to this site, I thought to myself 'this is how it should be, and this is what a project should look like'."

Standout Seaview projects from Mills Albert to create a Port Road Rock Revetment and a polished project from Daniel Renshaw Drainage to put in place good drainage at Tunnel Grove also featured as finalists in this category. Abseil Access rounded out this year's finalists with a large-scale rockfall mitigation project in Ngauranga Gorge, high on the slopes above State Highway 1 - also winning this year's John Carson Memorial Award for Health and Safety Excellence.

Brian Perry Civil saw off strong competition from Bryce O'Sullivan Contracting's Silverbrooke Subdivision, Goodman Contractors' earthworks on the Peka Peka to Otaki motorway, Pritchard Civil's construction of the Pā Reo campus in Otaki to 'living building' standards, and HEB Construction's Omaroro Reservior in the Projects over $2.5m category.

The BPC team won the hotly contested category with its Porirua Wastewater Treatment Plant Hydraulic Upgrade and Milliscreen Channel Remediation project, a highly technical project that saw the team re-think the way the wastewater plant operated, reshaping it to achieve better wastewater treatment outcomes.

This year's CCNZ Wellington Wairarapa Associate of the Year Award went to longstanding branch associate Tudor Distributors, while the Hynds Contractor Image Award went to Bryce O'Sullivan Contractors.

See the event photos>>