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Tom Willoughby's award-winning double

A NORTH Yorkshire construction company are celebrating after winning two top awards.

Tom Willoughby, a privately-owned construction company based in Northallerton, recently won both regional and national honours for its work in North Yorkshire.

First of all, the company won a prestigious gold award at the national Considerate Constructors Scheme (CCS), held at the Four Season Hotel in London. It is the third CCS award Tom Willoughby has won in the past four years, and was one of only 22 gold awards given out, putting the company in the top three per cent of firms registered in the scheme.

The annual awards recognise the highest levels of consideration and care shown by sites towards their local neighbourhoods, the general public, their workforce and the environment.

Tom Willoughby won their gold in the £250,000 to £3.5m category for work completed on two sites – the refurbishment of Laurel Bank House in Guiseley and the refurbishment of two science labs at Thirsk School and Sixth Form College for North Yorkshire County Council.

The award citation read: “The company clearly recognises the importance of its image and works hard at promoting this aim throughout the organisation, as well as to the public. The company clearly values its workforce, taking particular care over health and wellbeing, training and development.”

The company’s regional award came in the 2016 County Durham Environment Awards, for restoration work at St Michael and All Angels Church in Bishop Middleham on behalf of Beaumont Brown Architects.

The awards recognise projects that improve, enhance and protect the environment of County Durham and have been going since 1989.

The work at St Michael’s involved creating a café, disabled toilets facilities, the removal of some pews and relocation of a stone font to form an open play space. The project also involved skilled joinery work to restore timber panelling and ornate furniture and has resulted in an increase in the use of the church by families and community groups - cementing the church as an important hub in village life.

The work was nominated for the awards by Beaumont Brown Architects and was highly commended in the Built Environment category.

Darren Johnson, Managing Director of Tom Willoughby, said: “To win gold at the national CCS awards is a fantastic achievement for us and its credit to our site teams for their hard work and genuine desire to not only make the workplace a better environment but also help improve the image of the construction industry

“It’s also pleasing and rewarding to see the internal improvements we’ve made to St Michaels and All Angels have given the church a new lease of life through the new community spaces and there has been a marked increase in families and groups using the building.

“The restoration work was a very interesting and challenging project for us to carry out and involved some very highly skilled joinery work but our team was more than up to the challenge.”

Terry Collins, the Chief Executive and Chair of the County Durham Environment Partnership said: “The Environment Awards are a real opportunity to highlight the excellent work that takes place in the county every year.

“I’m constantly impressed by the work that volunteers, schools, businesses and community organisations carry out to protect, improve and enhance the environment in County Durham.”

Tom Willoughby was originally formed in 1896, was incorporated in 1961, and has regional offices in Northallerton, Scarborough, Harrogate and Catterick.

This was posted in Bdaily's Members' News section by Walter Thompson .