The transformation of the historic Western Fish Quay at North Shields has won a prestigious civil engineering accolade.
It was named as the North East’s best civil engineering project costing over £4 million at the Institute of Civil Engineers’ annual Robert Stephenson awards.
The judges described the North Shields Fish Quay work as: “The transformation of a deteriorating facility to meet future demands and ensure the continual successful operation of the fish quay.”
The Fish Quay project is being carried out by WA Fairhurst & Partners and Southbay Civils Ltd for the North Shields Fish Quay Company Ltd and the Port of Tyne.
The Western Quay project is the largest to have been funded through the European Fisheries Fund (EFF) in England, which contributed £2 million towards the £6 million modernisation scheme. Work to completely refurbish the existing 125-year-old quay, which had been in a state of decline for 50 years, was completed in October 2010.
It created a berthing facility of 275 metres for up to 40 fishing boats and also provided easy access to services such as fuel and ice. These will be of particular benefit to the large and growing number of vessels visiting the port between September and March due to the lucrative prawn fishing grounds in the North Sea.
The project also helped to safeguard over 500 jobs in the catching, landing and processing sectors of the North East fishing industry. Alongside the grant from the EFF other public funding for the project was provided through the regional development agency, local council and port authority. More than £234,000 has also been granted through the EFF to help fish processing companies in North Shields.
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