Taylors Contracting wins Australasian award for Challies Island Bridge project
Taylors Contracting has won the award for Innovation or Education to the Erosion & Sediment Control Industry (Australasian Chapter of the International Erosion Control Association – IECA) 2024 for its Challies Island Bridge project.
The award was presented on 18 October at the IECA’s Australasian Chapter annual conference in Queenstown.
Taylors Contracting’s award-winning entry involved the construction of a 30-metre moveable bridge across the Waimea River at Challies Island in Tasman. The bridge, which was manufactured by Eastbridge, allows 80-tonne, laden, rigid dump trucks to cross the river and transport extracted gravel from a nearby Fulton Hogan quarry site, without vehicles coming into contact with the water, thus eliminating sediment discharge. The bridge can be removed in 48 hours if a major flood is predicted.
The IECA Awards programme’s mission is to recognise outstanding achievements in the erosion and sediment control and to celebrate these with the wider community. The organisation has a strong focus on encouraging innovative solutions that effectively halt the spread of sediment, safeguarding our environment and ensuring sustainable land and water management practices.
As the winner of the Australasian IECA Chapter’s award the Challies Island Bridge project is now nominated for consideration at the global IECA awards held in Virginia, USA in 2025.
“We are very proud to have won the award,” says Taylors Contracting CEO Charlie Taylor. “This project exemplifies the thinking and innovation that goes into designing solutions that meet the needs of our communities and our environment, while enabling us to access the resources we need to keep vital infrastructure projects moving forward. We were particularly proud to have the strong endorsement of our project partners Fulton Hogan and the Tasman District Council. For them to see us as raising the bar for contractors in our sector generally means a great deal to us.”
Below is a short video about the project that was produced for the awards process:
