Projects

A project like March may not seem anything out of the ordinary: new pedestrian areas, new carriage ways and new street furniture intended to revitalise the town centre. But delivering a project like March while keeping the town centre thriving, keeping the community onside, and keeping the traffic flowing is the opposite of undemanding.

For a local authority project, this is where the contractor proves their worth; working cheek by jowl with the most important people in the client’s life – the communities they serve. This is why for March, and projects like it, Octavius put the community at the heart of the work.

The intention of Cambridgeshire County Council’s (CCC) project is revitalising the centre of this historic but ageing Fenland town by making it a more appealing and accessible place to be; enhancing the role of public transport and easing car dominance. The public realm infrastructure improvements included much broader and better appointed pedestrian spaces, more freely flowing traffic routes, and improved water front access.

Putting community first

Putting the community at the heart of the work meant for instance, incorporating local business’ needs into planning and methodology to maintain ‘business as usual’; or extensive stakeholder engagement before every planned night event. Octavius carried out detailed public consultation to test its approach, took ideas on board and addressed community questions. Access to shops, crossing points and bus stops were maintained throughout the works. Weekly coffee mornings in the site office were initially very busy, but over time it became clear people had growing confidence their needs were being taken into account; an indicator that communication was clear and landed successfully.

Octavius created social value to the equivalence of £2.12 million during the project. This was achieved through supporting FACET, a March-based charity providing training and day care to adults with disabilities; creating an apprenticeship, and extensive use of local suppliers. Among countless other social value activities Octavius even paid for the town-centre Christmas Tree which brought March international attention.

Creating a social value plan is a core element of the way Octavius approaches every project, with a structured method of understanding the touch points and mapping opportunities to unlock social value. This means, for the duration of a project, Octavius acts as a valuable member of the community, and a positive de facto ambassador for the client.

Multi-agency collaboration

The primary client interface was with Cambridgeshire County Council (CCC), which awarded Octavius the project under the Eastern Highways Alliance 3 framework. But in a way that is becoming increasingly common with growing regional devolution, numerous local government bodies were closely involved, with funding drawn from multiple streams: The Future High Street’s Fund, under the auspices of Fenland District Council, funded the pedestrian areas; carriageway investments came under CCC’s March Area Transport Study; Cambridgeshire & Peterborough Combined Authority provided additional funding and oversight.

This is of significance because, as Octavius showed at March, successful local authority project delivery typically requires the ability to collaborate with, and balance the needs of, multiple agencies and programmes. At March, for example, phasing was linked to separate funding streams which also needed to be captured and reported separately.

Enabling utilities

The highly collaborative approach extended to the many utilities serving March. Utility diversions required working closely with Anglian Water, Cadent Gas, UKPN, BT Openreach, Virgin Media, Balfour Beatty Living Places – CCC’s term maintenance contractor. Octavius’ approach was characterised by early engagement to address challenges before they became problems, followed by open communication as the project progressed.

Octavius helped Anglian Water and Cadent Gas to better understand asset location and condition by mapping buried assets on the utilities’ behalf, often going beyond standard scope, by playing a pivotal role in facilitating repairs.

While no two town centres are the same, the level of collaboration Octavius demonstrated at March, allied to the way community is kept at the heart of the project, is consistent across all of our public realm projects, and beyond.