Developing Talent with Media4Schools

Our Glamorgan office played a key role in the Media4Schools Awards 2009 recently.

Media4Schools is an education based media training initiative where pupils and their teachers are trained in media production skills & techniques. They are then supported and mentored to produce their own programmes via links between the schools and various local businesses.

Glamorgan's involvement with Media4Schools came through working with them to produce a promotional DVD for Capita Symonds Glamorgan – ‘Capita Glamorgan – 1 Year On’. The video can be seen below.

The 'Media4Schools Awards' are used to highlight and acknowledge how the pupils demonstrated their skills, developed their enterprise awareness and helped to raise the profile of their school within the community. The awards categories are based on curriculum-related topics and regional topics of interest which link in with social and community initiatives in their areas.

The Glamorgan office sponsored the ‘Award for Best Community Film’ which was won by Clydach Vale for their film ‘Coal and Community’. Produced with Tonypandy Community College and Cwm Clydach Communities First, the film looks at the Cambrian Mining disaster of 1965, exploring its effects through interviews with members of the community including survivors and rescuers.

Capita Symonds shortlisted for Building Award

Great news - we've been shortlisted for the Project/Construction Management Firm of the Year at the Building awards!

Find out more on Building's website

Honour for Museum in RCIS awards

A Capita Symonds project, the Kelvingrove New Century Project, has been commended in the global final of the RICS awards.

The awards - which brought together outstanding building projects from the UK, Europe and Australia - recognise excellence, value for money and a commitment to building conservation.

Kelvingrove Art Gallery & Museum saw off 74 other building projects for the ‘commended’ accolade in the building conservation category, narrowly missing out on the top spot to Beeleigh Abbey in Essex.

A team from the Glasgow office – led by Regional Director Gordon Malcolm – provided project and construction management on the £30m programme to refurbish the Glasgow museum, which is a category A-Listed Building and the fourth best attended museum in the UK.

The project, which was awarded Scotland’s largest single Heritage Lottery Grant, won the ‘Building Conservation’ category at the RICS Scotland awards earlier this year.

RICS Scotland Director Graeme Hartley said: “To be commended in a global awards final shows Scotland has world-class building projects. The judges were impressed by the scale and care taken to successfully deliver a very demanding project like Kelvingrove. As a category A-listed building, the team had to be careful to safeguard and enhance the building and its surroundings whilst bringing it into the 21st century. The number of visitors to Kelvingrove endorses the success of the project”.

Well done!

Blooming Marvellous

Capita Lovejoy’s Aviva Garden project has won the prestigious James Miller Trophy at the 'Flowers In The City' awards.


The Lord Mayor of London, Mr Alderman David Lewis, presented David Blackwood-Murray of Capita Lovejoy with the award at a reception at The Mansion House in London.

The Flowers in the City Campaign, which aims to “beautify” the City, was launched over forty years ago by the Worshipful Company of Gardeners in conjunction with the Corporation of London.

Whilst the Corporation maintains a considerable number of gardens and floral displays throughout the City via it's Parks and Gardens department, the Flowers in the City Campaign targets the private sector, rewarding a variety of individuals and companies.

A team from Capita Lovejoy designed the private garden at Aviva’s headquarters in St Helen's Square, London. Installed by Willerby Landscapes, the garden was conceived as an ‘oasis to celebrate life and vitality’ and provides a stunning visual amenity for visitors and staff at the adjacent Aviva Tower.

The garden is a clear, calm space structured by the use of trees, hedges and stepped terraces. Sculptural walls provide enclosure to the garden whilst permitting views into the space from an undershaft along its north boundary. A wall of slatted timber then provides a contrasting, textured finish along the southern edge of the garden while ‘Art Walls’ create a dynamic feature amongst the planting and beneath the canopy of the trees throughout the day and night.

Capita Symonds acquired land planning consultancy Lovejoy in March 2008, to form Capita Lovejoy.

Find out more about our land planning service from Capita Lovejoy

Award for Street Lighting discussion paper

David Denner (Asset Manager in our Cwmbran office) has won an award from the Institution of Lighting Engineers (ILE) for Best Regional Paper 2008.

David's paper, "Street Lighting: An Engineer’s Perspective", discussed the evolving role of street lighting engineers in helping to maintain safe public highways in the face of ever decreasing budgets, greater demands from the community, increasing energy costs and changes in legislation.

Until recently, David was the Street Lighting Engineer at Caerphilly County Borough Council, responsible for the day to day management of the street lighting group. He has 18 years experience within the public sector, working for various local highway authorities in South Wales.

David has also been instrumental in the co-ordination of the energy tender for the South Wales consortium - which consists of all the Unitary Authorities in South Wales involved in the procurement of street lighting energy - along with the management of the consortium's photo cell array and associated software.

Well done David.

Capita Symonds shortlisted for CMA 08 Award

We have been shortlisted for the Construction Marketing Awards 08 for "Best Use of Events & Exhibitions", for our stand at the 'Think 08' sustainability exhibition.

The full shortlist for all awards will be announced on 20th October on the CMA 08 website

The winners will be announced on 27th November 2008. Fingers crossed!

Find out more about our Capita Symonds at Think 08

Find out more about Sustainability within Capita Symonds

Watch our video from Think 08: