Happy new year from all of us at Sutcliffe. We’ve been back to work for a week now, and although the majority of us are working from home under new lockdown measures, it’s still business as usual with many exciting projects and plans for this year underway. So what have we been up to?
LiverCool Awards
Well, just before Christmas we were able to enjoy a day at the Livercool awards thanks to the amazing work of the Downtown In Business team. Everyone in attendance had to have a negative Covid test result, followed by temperature checks and social distancing throughout the event. It was a lovely feeling to be back in the world of events and networking, so we are extremely grateful to Downtown for doing this safely.
We are also delighted to say that we went home from the event with the prestigious Decade of Excellence Award too! Thank you to anyone who voted for Sutcliffe in any of the categories we were nominated – it really means a lot.
Sean appointed Northwest Regional Chair of the Association for Consultancy and Engineering (ACE)
As The Association for Consultancy and Engineering (ACE) announced their senior board positions this new year there were a number of new board positions created in order to reflect a shift in longer term organisation priorities and changes to the sector. Sean Keyes has been appointed new chair in the North West as he plans to strengthen ACE as an organisation and support all members across the UK. Congratulations Sean!
Ongoing projects and new project wins
You might have seen some headlines about Liverpool Media Academy’s expansion into the Metquarter in central Liverpool. LMA is co-owned by Robbie Williams… who would have thought that Sutcliffe would be able to boast a celebrity clientele in 2021?! The £15m development will include film studios, dance studios, music rehearsal rooms, classrooms and recording studios, all due to be open later this year.
One project that is much closer to the finish line is our Mill Lane site, where we have been working on the foundations and the initial construction of some affordable rent homes for the over 55s. Take a look at the shots below to see our progress in the last four months:
October 2020 
January 2021
Recently we saw that Wilmslow High School received the planning permission green light. We can’t wait to get started on this one – it involves two areas of new build extensions, with internal alterations to the existing building and surrounding landscaping in order to increase student numbers from 1,500 to 1,900. We will be working on a new single storey classroom as the new main entrance, with an enhanced parent drop off area to reduce road congestion. The second extension involves the sport facilities on site, as we prepare for a new two storey sports block extension towards the rear of the site.
We are also delighted to say that, through our partnership with Wigan Council, three of our schemes have been successfully tendered through the Innovation Chain North (ICN) framework. These schemes are Wharfdale House – an extra care facility in Leigh, the Railway Arches which is 40 apartments in Leigh, and Sandalwood Drive – an extra care development and bungalows. We’re excited to get working with the successful contractors Vistry Partnerships, Crossfield Group and Caddick construction respectively.
Working from home life
Our on site engineers are still working hard to complete our ongoing projects as scheduled, with the right safety measures in place to protect all workers involved.
That means our on site engineers are sporting some lovely branded face masks, which Sean is modelling here:
We still have a core group of staff working safely from the office, with the remainder working from home under new lockdown measures. As our Structural Engineer Louise Westhoff knows, working from home does have its challenges and distractions….
