Social Value Partnership Signed at Special Event
AmcoGiffen works in several sectors with various clients and much of our front-line operational activity is carried out by maintenance teams travelling to locations throughout the UK. The work is transient, making it difficult for these teams to add social value while they’re in the area.
To overcome this, we have entered a partnership with one of our clients, the national waterways charity Canal & River Trust to connect and enhance communities with the local environment, as part of our social value strategy.
The partnership aims to create a library of community impact activities for our maintenance teams to pick up and complete wherever they are working. Much of the work is reactive making social value difficult to plan. This relationship will provide those teams with ready-made opportunities to deliver social value easily.
The agreement was signed by AmcoGiffen's Operations Director, Bryan Kennedy and Richard Parry, Canal & River Trust, Chief Executive Officer at a special celebratory event at Britain’s longest, deepest, highest canal tunnel – Standedge Tunnel, in Marsden, near Huddersfield, a wonder of the 2,000-mile waterway network, which is looked after by the Canal & River Trust.
Attendees from AmcoGiffen, Canal & River Trust and Network Rail joined together to mark the start of the partnership. The idea behind the agreement is to connect and enhance communities with the local environment. As part of our social value commitments, we will assist the Trust with projects where the charity would otherwise struggle to deliver these with their core funding.
In return, the Trust will be supporting us with training and upskilling their team with specialist skills such as dry-stone walling.
As part of the partnership, we have agreed to use our well-placed skills and capabilities to carry out de-vegetation, repairs and maintenance, removal of graffiti, dry-stone walling and other small projects that can be completed using their community impact days (three per employee per year).
The agreement will start in Canal & River Trust’s Yorkshire & North East region and the aim is to extend it to the North West and West Midlands regions later. The agreement also aligns with the social value commitments we have made to Network Rail for CP7 in bids.
AmcoGiffen also carries out tunnel maintenance work on behalf of Network Rail at Standedge Tunnel. The tunnel is Britain’s longest, deepest and highest canal tunnel into which visitors can take boat trips, led by the Trust. A special educational guided tour was given to attendees and several AmcoGiffen civil engineering apprentices as part of the event.
The agreement is a crucial element of the community pillar of our five-year social value strategy cleverly maximising cross-client, cross-border opportunities. It eliminates piecemeal and ad-hoc activities and brings about greater value and benefit for all.
Sean McGinley, director North East & Yorkshire for Canal & River Trust, said
