THE whole team at David Smith Contractors has been praised by SSEN Transmission and BAM Nuttall after the Fraserburgh-based firm delivered crucial civil engineering works months ahead of schedule on the £4.3 billion Eastern Green Link 2 (EGL2) project.
EGL2 is a 505km electricity superhighway, which will enable the transfer of power from Scotland to England via a subsea HVDC cable connecting Peterhead and Drax in North Yorkshire. It will deliver enough clean energy to power two million homes once completed in 2029.
David Smith Contractors was contracted to carry out bulk earthworks at the project’s Peterhead site, where they used their own locally-quarried stone from Savoch Quarry to create a level platform ahead of the construction of a converter station, which will connect the HVDC cable between the two nations.
“David Smith Contractors commenced the earthworks on the project at the worst time of year, coming into winter in November,” Alan McWilliam, project director at BAM told Project Plant. “Davie (David Smith – MD) and his team worked every day, and whilst it may have been one of the milder winters, no time was lost to adverse weather. Davie and his team are from the north east, so that local knowledge was built into the methodology.
“There is a continued high level of interest in the project from senior management, and visits to site would always lead to comments on how clean and tidy the earthworks were… that’s what you can expect when employing people with local knowledge.”
Having a personal knowledge of the heavy red clay site, the firm purchased a Volvo bulk excavation EC500 excavator, fitted with a Euro-Fab bucket, the first of its kind in Scotland when it debuted on site two years ago. The 50-tonne machine features a range of assistive digital tools to increase productivity including Volvo Dig Assist, Volvo Active Control, and full Trimble GPS which delivers an automated grading system.
“The type of this site is heavy red clay, so it’s quite dour to handle,” David Smith explained. “I knew to shift that muck a decent sized prime mover was needed that wasn’t too big – because if it’s too big you can’t sit on the clay – but big enough for the breakout to get full buckets and load our Volvo A30G trucks quick.”
David Smith Contractors made the decision from its founding in 2008 to have its plant fleet completely in-house. Around 80% of the fleet is Volvo, whilst all dozers are Komatsu loading shovels. Scania tippers, JCB Loadalls and wheeled excavators, Bomag compaction gear, and Trimble GPS technology are also part of the portfolio.
Explaining that providing jobs for locals means ‘everything’ to him, David revealed that all of the David Smith Contractors team hails from in and around the Peterhead area.
Intent on ensuring local youngsters benefit from the current boom in projects in Peterhead, which also includes a carbon capture power station, David Smith Contractors is working with SSEN Transmission and BAM to visit schools and community groups to encourage people to consider careers in the sector.
“It’s really important from our perspective; we’ve got a large legacy in the north east area and that is why we’re always local first,” Jamie Wallace, deputy project director at SSEN Transmission, revealed. “Peterhead is pretty much spearheading the energy transition space right now, and local companies and organisations are all working in partnership to develop skillsets, so even if there is a part of the supply chain that is currently unable to contribute to the project, in a couple of years’ time that supply chain skillset may become available.”
Nine full-time roles have been created at David Smith Contractors on the back of the EGL2 contract, with particular priority given to youngsters as David looks to ensure the area has a pipeline of future talent.
“I’m very conscious that we need to get people into this industry – it’s screaming out for it,” he added, revealing the business also has a partnership with HMP & YOI Grampian to try and give ex-offenders a second chance. It also has a partnership with Barnardos and with Peterhead Academy.
“We need to get young people into civil engineering. I can’t emphasise enough how hard we’ve been trying to get them in and give them the opportunity – and everybody at SSEN Transmission and BAM has assisted all the way.”
The rest of this year will see David Smith Contractors deliver deep drainage works on the site, after the firm’s performance in the first phase helped win a competitive tender process for further phases.
“We’d built that strong relationship, so we knew what we were getting. There was a competitive tendering process to go through with other suppliers, but David Smith Contractors came out on top,” Alan said. “We move forward in good knowledge, knowing the good work David Smith Contractors produced on the earthworks was going to be replicated on the drainage package with some of those resources that delivered the earthworks having now transitioned over into drainage.
“We’re confident we’ll have another successful delivery – with it already a couple weeks ahead of programme.”
