Green Apple Award for Environmental Best Practice

Mabbett acted as a sub-consultant to Morgan Sindall Infrastructure on the award-winning Boat of Garten to Nethy Bridge VISTA project in the north of Scotland, delivering a Construction Environment Management Plan (CEMP) and Ecological Clerk of Works (ECoW) for the installation of underground cabling in a rural environment. The project won the Green Apple Award for Environmental Best Practice

Mabbett Approach and Delivery

Morgan Sindall Infrastructure on behalf of Scottish and Southern Electricity Networks Transmission (SSEN Transmission) delivered the Visual Impact of Scottish Transmission Assets (VISTA) Boat of Garten to Nethy Bridge Project in the North of Scotland. The project involved removing overhead line infrastructure north of Boat of Garten and installing underground cables to replace two sections of current 132kV overhead line.

Acting as a sub-consultant to Morgan Sindall Infrastructure, our Construction Environment Team provided:

preconstruction CEMP (Construction Environment Management Plan) assistance,
onsite environmental clerk of works duties and,
assisted with delivery of innovative projects to drive up environmental performance which resulted in the project winning a Green Apple Award for Environmental Best Practice.

Project Outcomes

The project was awarded a Green Apple Award for Environmental Best Practice. Our ECoW provided advice and guidance on implementation of environmental best practice to mitigate any current and future impacts of the construction project. Working alongside the Moran Sindall Infrastructure construction team, key environmental protection initiatives delivered under this project included:

Translocating wood ant nests. Development of methodology and toolbox talks to train site staff on translocating nests. This good practice saved 16 wood ant nests which equates to approximately 160,000 individuals, this practice will maintain the local population of this species.
Retaining flowering plants – rare invertebrate species. It was identified that the wayleave was to cross areas of high flowering plant species which are locally important for a range of rare invertebrate species. Morgan Sindall Infrastructure undertook stripping works retaining the flowering plants within turfs for reinstatement. This will limit habitat loss of 3500m2 and maintain important local biodiversity.
Design of a watercourses system – reduce concrete pollution. To minimise disruption to the water environment when laying cables under small to medium watercourses a system was developed to create pre-cast concrete cable ducts to install directly onsite for 22 watercourses. This reduced pollution risks from using concrete within the watercourse, reduces impacts to the water environment and reduces waste.