Dakota House, West Croydon
The Considerate Constructors' Scheme is a nationwide initiative that monitors registered sites' activities and assesses their performance against the eight point Code of Considerate Practice.
These eight points are:
- Considerate
- Environment
- Cleanliness
- A Good Neighbour
- Respectful
- Safe
- Responsible
- Accountable
Standards across the whole industry are constantly improving and as a result last year's new ideas become this year's standard practice. Therefore individual project management teams must use their own initiative to constantly improve their working practices. Having said that, many of the standard practices set by the Berkeley Group across all of our sites are considered to be industry-leading. Our Health & Safety initiatives such as the 'Good Work' and 'Good Order' campaigns as well as our commitment to sustainable development will always help our sites to stand-out from our competitors and to score highly. At Dakota House, the site management built upon these company procedures and developed additional initiatives and procedures in response to the constraints and opportunities presented by the site.
These included:
- Quarterly residents' newsletters with progress photos were delivered to local homes.
- Offers of visits by the project management team were sent to local schools.
- The Technical College was contacted and site-visits were set-up for young apprentices to experience a working site for a day.
- Local businesses were given 'before' and 'after' tours of the site during the initial and latter stages of the project.
- Materials were sourced from local distributors where possible.
- Contractors were encouraged to employ local labour
- The project's CO2 emissions and water usage were carefully monitored during the construction phase. The
- collated data was displayed prominently in a chart format. Water butts were used to collect rainwater which in turn was added to the render and cement.
- The nearby hospital car-park was regularly maintained by operatives from the project. Graffiti removal, litter-picking and gardening were all undertaken by Berkeley First
- The Assistant Site manage ran the Cardiff Half Marathon in order to raise money for a local charity.
- Regular presentations were made to the workforce about the scheme and its aims. Accompanying literature was also produced.
- A project-specific website was produced and trialled – although not officially launched.
- A questionnaire was distributed to the local residents in an attempt to gather some feedback from those that were most affected by the site operations.
