Double Award Success for North West Cambridge Development

Contract Ecology Ltd is delighted that the University of Cambridge’s North West Cambridge Development has scooped up another two awards for their innovative urban expansion project.

 

Adding to a long list of worthy awards, the North West Cambridge project has won the Royal Institute of Chartered Surveyors Eastern region’s best Residential and coveted Project of the Year award for 2018.

 

Contract Ecology Ltd was commissioned to supply and install amphibian exclusion fencing to aid with implementation of an EPS licence at the £1billion North West Cambridge Development scheme.

 

The 150 hectare sustainable development scheme will provide a new district to Cambridge which will be home to 8500 residents.  A primary school, community centre, health centre, hotel and retail space will also be created at the site.  All of which will be interlinked by 50 hectares of open green space.

 

We created 3 new hibernacula at the site which had to be carefully executed as the site was also home to badgers and areas of hugely significant archaeological heritage.

 

Experts from Cambridge Archaeological Unit who led the archaeological investigations for the scheme believe the site was first colonised for settlement in the Middle Bronze Age (c.1500BC) and subsequently saw Iron Age settlement (c.500BC-50AD); in Roman times (c.60-350AD) it would have been considered an optimum locale.  Archaeologists recorded five separate cemeteries, two funerary monuments, two Roman roads, ring-ditch ‘circles’ and thousands of finds including some 30 cremation urns, 25 skeletons, a military spearhead and an array of brooches, plus quantities of slag attesting to significant iron-working at the site.

 

Our team specifically used micro plant to undertake the works. Normally our team use this to maintain a low impact footprint on sensitive ecological sites but on this occasion it helped to safeguard the historically and culturally valuable features of the site.

 

Project Overview

Site: North West Cambridge

Services: destructive hand search, habitat clearance, amphibian exclusion fencing, one way exclusion fencing, retention and reuse of onsite materials for hibernacula construction

Location: Cambridgeshire, UK

Link to scheme: http://www.nwcambridge.co.uk