PRESS RELEASE FROM ISLE OF MAN TRANSPORT
“An important British institution today announced that the Isle of Man features strongly in the nominations for its 2016 Annual Awards.
The Institution of Civil Engineers (ICE) – which holds annual awards in every region and devolved nation of the UK – has revealed that some of the Isle of Man’s best-loved civil engineering features are in the running for awards to be announced next week (25 February).
The ICE North West Annual Awards celebrate the year’s best civil engineering projects anywhere in Cheshire, Cumbria, Greater Manchester, the Isle of Man, Lancashire and Merseyside – and the recent project to completely refurbish the Manx Electric Railway’s Ballure Bridge has been nominated in the Medium Projects category (projects costing between £500,000 and £10 million). The project was commissioned by Isle of Man Public Transport and the principal designer was Burroughs Stewart Associates of Douglas, with Auldyn Construction of Tromode being the principal contractor.
Ramsey’s 115-year-old lattice railway bridge has also been nominated in the Heritage Awards category, which has been introduced for the first time in 2016 to celebrate historic civil engineering features that people and communities know and love.
Jeremy Reece, Chief Engineer of the Isle of Man Railways, said today: “The Ballure Bridge was completed in 1899, the final element of the infant Manx Electric Railway’s entry into Ramsey. It has been in continuous use since the opening and still carries a functioning electric tramway after one hundred and fifteen years.
“From an engineering point of view the configuration is unusual, with a lattice girder located directly below the centre line of each of the two tracks. The refurbishment included replacing the timber rail support beams with modern neglected plastic equivalents with a design life of 300 years. In addition to the steelwork repairs and repainting, more than 700 rivets were replaced. The completed works have now assured the life of this landmark bridge for another generation.”
Stevenson family lighthouses
The Isle of Man’s Stevenson family lighthouses have also been nominated for the Heritage Award. These are a collection of lighthouses built over a century by the family of Robert Stevenson –grandfather of the famous writer Robert Louis Stevenson and one of the noted lighthouse builders of the nineteenth century. Stevenson built thirteen lighthouses in his native Scotland as well as three in the Isle of Man. His sons David and Thomas built three more lighthouses on the island, and David’s son Charles Stevenson built the Maughold Head Lighthouse almost exactly a century after his grandfather had built the two lighthouses at Calf of Man.
Point of Ayre (1815 – Robert Stevenson)
Calf of Man (two lighthouses.) (1818 – Robert Stevenson)
Douglas Head (1857 – David and Thomas Stevenson)
Chicken Rock (1875 – David and Thomas Stevenson)
Langness (1880 – David and Thomas Stevenson)
Maughold Head (1914 – Charles Stevenson)
Garry Saunders, Isle of Man representative for ICE North West said today, “This is a remarkable collection of lighthouses built by three generations of the same family. The Point of Ayre Lighthouse is the oldest of them, but Chicken Rock Lighthouse – built 60 years later in 1874 – must have been the most challenging to build. It’s a 44-metre tall tapered granite structure perched on a rock that measures only a tenth of a hectare, four and a half kilometres from the southernmost tip of the Isle of Man. It’s good to recognise the ingenuity and the determination that went into building these lighthouses – they have helped keep ships safe and have served the Isle of Man well during a couple of centuries.”
Darrell Matthews, North West Regional Director of the Institution of Civil Engineers, said: “These awards helped us to showcase the best civil engineering projects from around the North West of England and the Isle of Man. This year we’ve added our Heritage Award to celebrate the classic civil engineering of past centuries, work which was often done in more challenging circumstances and which has stood the test of time. But in all cases we’re reminded of how civil engineers overcome all sorts of problems to help shape the world around us.”
The winners will be announced during a special Awards Dinner, which this year will be held at the prestigious Halston Hotel in Carlisle on Friday 25 February, in the presence of Sir John Armitt, current President of the Institution of Civil Engineers, former head of Network Rail and perhaps best known for his role in delivering the 2012 London Olympics.
The sponsors of this year’s ICE North West Annual Awards are Story Contracting, GHD Livigunn, Aecom, Kier and Balfour Beatty.
For further information please contact Spencer Fitz-Gibbon, ICE North West External Relations Executive, 07825 383880, [email protected].