A regional contractor has been announced as a winner at this year's South West Built Environment Awards (SWBE).

Speller Metcalfe, who employs over 230 staff, picked up the People Development category award last week.

The firm has a strong history of award-winning initiatives including previous wins in the Health & Safety, Heritage and People Development categories.

The SWBE awards bring together the highest achievers of the construction industry from all over the South West, with winners going on to compete at the national awards in November.

The company attributes the win to a variety of initiatives, including a number of significant investments in both their staff and working practices over the last year in what they term, "a constant drive towards innovation and excellence."

This has included supporting staff through further study including degrees and professional qualifications, as well as putting a significant emphasis on the health, safety and wellbeing of staff members through setting up a Behavioural Safety Steering group and mental health first aid training.

Andy Metcalfe, joint managing director said: "We aim to encourage and develop every member of our team to do their very best, whilst also appreciating the important role we can play in encouraging new people into the industry and in sharing knowledge and best practice with our clients, colleagues and peers."

Externally this has involved further developing their 'Adopt a School' programme, where they have partnered with three schools to encourage mentoring programmes to develop knowledge and opportunities for school and university leavers into the construction industry.

At an industry level, Speller Metcalfe also deliver a series of free CPD events aimed at improving and promoting collaborative working and best practice industry-wide under the contractor's 'Bill Munn Knowledge Series' programme, with over 1350 attendees to date.

Regionally, the contractor is currently on site delivering the new £5m Cinderford Medical Centre, a state-of-the-art £5.1m children's centre in Longlevens and the £13m residential development at Brandon Yard in Bristol.