Spire hits heights with latest award
Sunderland’s stunning Northern Spire has scooped another major award.
The new bridge, which opened in August, was named Project of the Year: Engineering, Construction and Infrastructure 2018, at the Association for Project Management (APM) awards in London.
Northern Spire was up against a number of outstanding engineering and infrastructure projects from across the UK, including the Royal Navy’s new HMS Queen Elizabeth aircraft carrier, medical research centre The Francis Crick Institute, Master Gas System Expansion Phase-1, by Saudi Aramco, and The Temperate House Project.
The APM award is the latest honour to be bestowed on the 105metre-tall cablestayed bridge, which links Castletown on the north side of the River Wear with Pallion in the south and took more than 2,000 people to build.
“What a wonderful honour, to be awarded Project of the Year by the Association for Project Management, for our beautiful Northern Spire bridge, especially given the extremely high standard of the other projects nominated,” said Sunderland City Council Leader Coun Graeme Miller.
“We are all very proud of our city’s new landmark, but it’s wonderful to know that it’s also being recognised nationally, too.”
During recent months, different aspects of the Northern Spire project have been recognised at award ceremonies up and down the country.
Project manager Duncan Ross Russell, from Atkins, which supervised the project on behalf of Sunderland City Council, said: “Projects like Northern Spire cannot be built by one team or contractor, they take the skills and expertise of thousands of different people, from designers and planners to welders and painters, so this award really is for everyone.”