Charcon, the commercial hard landscaping division of Aggregate Industries, has been crowned the winner of the Innovation of the Year – Materials category at the 2016 London Construction Awards, thanks to its Eco Countryside Cycle Kerb Segregation System.
The judges were impressed by Charcon’s creativity and expertise in developing a bespoke hard landscaping solution that would serve as a safe and sustainable segregation system which, in the case of the Mayor’s Flagship Cycle Superhighway 2 (CS2), is already helping to reduce the number of accidents on London’s roads.
The creation of this innovative product derived from TfL’s significant investment in the CS2 between Aldgate and Bow interchange to make the route safer for cyclists and other road users, following a significant amount of cycle related incidents in the area.
The challenge was to create a unique integrated system that reduced both installation time and traffic disruption. The Eco Countryside Cycle Kerb Segregation System was subsequently developed by Charcon’s technical team as an alternative to the imported granite kerb configuration with concrete block paving inlay previously used. Replicating the aesthetics of natural granite, it has offered a 33% carbon footprint reduction due to being manufactured in the UK, utilising 82% recycled and secondary material content. Installation time for construction of the cycle route was reduced by 50%, which in turn impacted positively on the cost of preliminaries and traffic management.
Winning such a prestigious accolade cements Charcon’s position as the market leader for bespoke cycle segregation systems. The Eco Countryside Kerb strengthens Charcon’s existing range of cycle kerbs which have been manufactured for various cycleway projects across the country, for the likes of Cambridgeshire County Council and Nottingham City Council.
The Charcon team attended the ceremony at London’s Royal Garden Hotel on Wednesday 26th October, with Mike Davies, Category Manager for Charcon, collecting the award. On winning the award, Mike comments: “Being awarded Innovation of the Year for this particular project makes us incredibly proud. We worked hard to develop and supply 24,000l/m of a product that would not only improve the safety of the cyclists and other road users, but also that of the contractors due to the ease and speed of installation which also reduced the impact on road users during construction. We’d like to thank TfL and Ringway Jacobs for giving us the opportunity to partner with them on such an important project which, quite literally, will help to save lives.
“With the growth of cycleway infrastructure throughout the country, the potential for our segregation kerb solutions is significant and we have already seen an increasing number of Local Authorities showing an interest.”
