Last week Constructing Excellence in Wales, the South West Wales Best Practice Club and ICE Cymru joined the Welsh Government Transport Division, Sisk-Roadbridge, Hyder, Ramboll and their other partners to hear about their Exemplar project on the A477 between St Clears and Red Roses in west Wales.

The A477 from St Clears to Pembroke Dock is one of the main links from the M4 motorway into Pembrokeshire and on to Ireland. It forms an important part of the Welsh Government's strategic road network. This 9.3km scheme will bypass the villages of Llanddowror and Red Roses, cross the River Hydfron and pass through several environmentally sensitive areas including the Taf Valley. The works are progressing well and are due for completion in 2014.

Ed Evans, CEW’s director for the Exemplar programme, said “it was a great morning and great to hear how the team has embraced the very early involvement of the contractor (ECI) which has benefitted the delivery of key aspects of the project, including addressing sensitive environmental objectives, engaging with the local community and supporting cost and time certainty. The team also set out the procurement strategy to engage the contractor earlier in the delivery process, how risks are managed and how costs are controlled from such an early stage. These are all issues which others could and should learn from.”

About 40 people heard from:
• the Welsh Government client on their reasons for adopting this particular procurement strategy and the benefits they expect to realise from early contractor involvement
• the delivery team on how they approached the project and in particular the way they have engaged with the local community to ensure a successful outcome

This project was put forward as part of the Constructing Excellence in Wales Exemplar Programme so that others can learn from the actions taken by the team to deliver economic, social and environmental benefits. Copies of the pre-construction case study will be available soon via our website.

Both Milica and Sue also attended the event. Sue added that “it was great to see such an impressive civil engineering project as you can see from the photos – even if it was a little cold on the site visit!”