Regeneration Awards
2007 Winners
- Regeneration Contractor of the Year
- Best Community Led Project
2005 Winners
- Regeneration Contractor of the Year
Our previous victory in the 2005 Regeneration Awards was pivotal in our growth as a company, turnover having since grown to over £150M, with operations now stretching beyond Greater London into the Home Counties, East Anglia, Buckinghamshire and Sussex. This second victory in 2007 established Higgins as the only contractor to have ever reclaimed the Regeneration Contractor of the Year title.
The award for Best Community Regeneration Project went to our Market Estate project, which we are carrying out for Southern Housing Group. Seven years ago, a series of criminal incidents on the notorious north London estate near Caledonian Park, incited the local residents to voice a need for change in their community. Dark, secluded areas of this post-war development had become havens for gang crime and vandalism. The Project Team identified the necessity of rebuilding the community, not simply building new homes. The project has made a concerted effort to open up the estate with more street houses and play areas, and has seen the construction of 140 new flats and houses of mixed-tenure, alongside regenerated green spaces. Crime has since diminished considerably, with a noticeable positive interaction between neighbours in its place. We are proud to have been able to engage the local residents in community projects and offer jobs to local youths, previously deemed unemployable yet now working as estate-based trainees and apprentices.
Market Estate is just one of many community regeneration projects in which Higgins has been proud to play a part. We have recently invested £2M with training charity CSV, for the development of CSV Springboard training centres across London, and with 12 school careers days, over 800 health and safety presentations and sponsorship of West Ham United’s Asians in Football initiative, Higgins is at the forefront of the capital’s regeneration projects.