Watch our 2020 end-of-year video here

Well, there you have it: 2020 has been a year that few of us will forget easily. We’ve all had to adapt, extremely quickly, to a situation that we’d never have expected just 12 months ago, and that may leave a long-lasting impression on the way we live and work.

Despite the challenges this year has brought, our teams have managed to hand over key projects, such as the redevelopment of Llys Cadwyn in Pontypridd and a new state-of-the-art engineering building at UWE. Our flagship projects English National Ballet and The Wave Bristol have won multiple national award wins.

In the video above we’ve shone the spotlight on all those achievements, along with some of our key projects from 2020, including:

Hinkley Point C

Hydrock's nuclear specialists continue to provide safety case support as the construction of Hinkley Point C progresses. Our team support the production of an evolving safety report that justifies the release of project hold points by demonstrating how the nuclear safety will be managed during the next phase.

Llys Cadwyn

We delivered this new build regeneration project that has completely transformed the prime gateway site for Pontypridd town centre, and provided vibrant new headquarters for Transport for Wales in one of three buildings.

Bristol Bears

Hydrock provided multi-disciplinary engineering services on a new state-of-the-art training facility for Bristol Bears, one of England’s top professional rugby clubs, which includes a two-storey steel-framed training pavilion containing a gym, changing rooms, two hybrid grass pitches and office accommodation for the club’s staff.

The Newt Estate

We’ve been engaged in the transformation of the Emily Estate in Somerset, including supporting the design and construction of an underground museum showcasing the history of gardening

SEGRO Logistics Park East Midlands Gateway

Our geotechnical engineers supported the earthworks for this 700-acre development, including a 2.5km rail embankment, three bridges, and realignment of major highways, while our structural and civil engineers have been working on 2.5million sq ft of the logistics space.

Boklok

Hydrock’s London-based building services team advised BoKlok – the Skanska and IKEA joint venture modular housing business - to develop standardised designs for their entry into the UK market with their sustainable, affordable, factory-built homes product.

Smart Energy and Sustainability

Our Smart Energy team has gone from strength to strength since its inception a year ago, with key projects with both local authorities and on strategic masterplan sites taking off, several of the team hosting Hydrock webinars and industry-leading battery storage specialist Dave Streather joining the team in August.

Urban Soundscape Design

Our acoustic engineers have specialised in incorporating soundscape design in to urban planning, effectively mitigating the unavoidable aural aspects of modern urban life, and incorporating traffic planning, landscaping, architectural design and ecology - a holistic approach to shaping our environment.

RAF Henlow

Our Programme Delivery team have led our engineering delivery with partners, Avison Young and Allies & Morrison on a number of schemes for Homes England in 2020 – at RAF Henlow in Bedfordshire, we’re helping to redevelop a 200ha former airbase to provide a high quality and highly sustainable scheme of homes, commercial space and community facilities.

A Vision for the 2020s

We launched an ambitious campaign pre-COVID to determine the themes, innovations, changes and opportunities that will shape our built environment and infrastructure in the 2020s. Our people contributed their ‘big ideas’ and our thoughts, which we brought together in a downloadable report.

Our people

Amongst our many significant hires this year, we were delighted to welcome Catriona Tully to our board back in March, with Ronnie McCombe also joining the board in November.

In February, we celebrated our sixth consecutive year in the Sunday Times 100 Best Companies to Work For listing, the most rigorous and extensive research into employee engagement in the UK.

By the time International Women in Engineering Day came around in June we decided to celebrate it remotely, asking a selection of our female engineers to take part in our video, ‘Why you should consider a career in engineering and sustainability’.

As of March 2020, in-person events were no longer viable, so we shifted our event efforts online, bringing you the quality content and thought leadership you've come to expect from Hydrock - in digital format. Our people stepped up to the challenge, presenting thought-provoking and informative webinars from across the country.