Westminster City Council King Street Low Carbon Trial - Client Report

BACKGROUND

Westminster City Council has one of the worst air pollution problems in the country and in September 2019 declared a climate emergency. A target was set to make council activities carbon neutral by 2030 and the Leader of Westminster Council has set this as the top priority. This is an overall council initiative and is being led by the Westminster City Council Corporate Team. To support the corporate goals, the City Highways Team asked the Asset Board, led by Andy Foster, to look at how works on the public highway could be carried out in a more carbon efficient manner. The Asset Board is comprised of members of Westminster City Council and key members of the FM Conway delivery team across all the Highways contracts. A Carbon Working Group was set up to focus solely on carbon reduction, which consisted of Andy Foster, Dan Perks, Westminster Operations Manager and Ivan Farrell, FM Conway Performance Manager. The group was tasked with understanding the existing carbon footprint, determining the requirements to lower it, and finding a way to introduce new measures and innovations. Andrew Cox, FM Conway SHEQ Director was invited into the group to bring industry expertise and advise on other FM Conway initiatives across London and the South East. A workshop was organised with all the Westminster contract leads to look at some of the key areas of improvement across:

• Materials

• Waste

• Design

• Work Methodology & Operations

• Plant & Tools

• Deliveries

• Travel

Several good ideas were raised, particularly around specification, electric vehicles and plant. The group determined that good planning and input around the design stage, looking at the reuse of materials and less reliance on granite from China, were key areas of focus. The next step was to implement these ideas into schemes on the programme and so the PPM programme was chosen where it is normally a ‘like for like’ replacement, so only minor amendments would be needed to the design.

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