The National Highway’s Regional Development Plan (RDP) sets out requirements for collaboration and inclusion. To help achieve this, the Highways Delivery Community (HDC) was formed, bringing together Balfour Beatty, Chevron, Hanson, HW Martin, Tarmac, Atkins and Aggregate Industries.
The HDC harnesses the knowledge and expertise of leading highways experts to deliver innovative, new solutions; providing specialist, reliable, sustainable and creative advice with a focus on safety, efficiency and quality. Rather than being driven by contractual obligation, the HDC community is driven by a mutual desire to influence and change the industry.
The HDC utilised the ISO44001 international accreditation framework to explore and implement new collaborative ways of working across the industry; sharing resources, opportunities and successes to generate efficiencies, increase safety and deliver value for customers.
The first phase was aimed at promoting collaborative working between supply chain partners and customers, jointly developing apprentices by giving them opportunity to work with others from partnering companies.
Participants were then given a 10-minute slot on ‘live learn’, an online video learning platform, where they were interviewed about their pathways into the apprenticeship scheme, key initiatives and projects they have worked on, and what their future aspirations were. The aim of these interviews was to allow other young people to build a better understanding of what an apprenticeship programme in the construction industry is truly like.
