Reflections on Gateshead business park blue-green corridor winning Highly Commended at susdrain 2024 Awards
Helen E Smith, Technical Director – Landscape Architecture, JBA Consulting, helensmith1@jbaconsulting.com
When the JBA Consulting team traveled to Cardiff for the 2024 susdrain SuDS Awards on 26 June, we were thrilled just to be invited and absolutely delighted to be shortlisted! Susdrain had shortlisted JBA Consulting’s Baltic Quarter Blue-Green Corridor in Gateshead for the New Commercial Development (any size) category. We assembled an enthusiastic team, both in person in Cardiff and online streaming to an office meeting room. We were all equally excited – before we knew we had even won anything!
The brilliant walking tour of SuDS examples throughout Cardiff showcased the transformative power of multifunctional SuDS, and demonstrated what can be achieved with the weight of policy and legislation behind them. Following the walk, the awards ceremony featured the shortlisted projects’ submission videos: a display of multi-faceted and varied SuDS schemes in a wide range of contexts from all over the UK. To be in the room with such a high standard of project teams was quite an honour.
Then, Andy Moores (CIRIA) called out our name as being Highly Commended in the New Commercial Development (any size) category, and we were overjoyed.
The Baltic Quarter Blue-Green Corridor project means a lot to us at JBA Consulting, as it resulted from the close collaboration required between the Landscape and Engineering teams and the unique context of the COVID-19 lockdown in which the scheme was designed (our first-ever presentations made virtually). Although a response to flood risk and the need for increased drainage capacity, it took a multifunctional approach to spatial design, biodiversity provision, and consideration of amenity benefits as well.
More personally, to those of us based in the Newcastle office, there is a real sense of collective ownership over the site. We have been taking regular visits during our lunch breaks to see how the planting is coming along and possibly to do a bit of guerrilla weeding! We look forward to seeing its use increase, with the development in the rest of the Baltic Quarter coming forward for delivery, and as a direct result of this project, creating much-needed green space within the urban form.
A big thank you to the organisers of the event at susdrain and CIRIA, and to Arup for hosting. The whole day was purposeful Continuous Professional Development, a superb networking opportunity, and an all-around good use of reflection time out of the office. It was seamlessly organised, very engaging, and a great balance of learning and celebration.
We shall treasure our new award, which has found a happy home in our Newcastle office, just 30 minutes away from the project site itself in Gateshead.
