CEMEX scoops top award for restoration at the Attenborough nature reserve
Global solutions company, CEMEX, was today presented with the coveted Cooper Heyman Cup at the Quarry Products Association (QPA) Showcase 2006 for its restoration work at Attenborough Nature Reserve in Nottinghamshire.
The site is owned by CEMEX and run in conjunction with Nottinghamshire Wildlife Trust and Broxtowe Borough Council. The company also won the Restoration Award with Special Merit for its Powburn Quarry in Northumberland.
The QPA Showcase 2006, which was held at the Royal Lancaster Hotel in London, is an annual event, which promotes sustainability in the quarrying industry and presents awards for best practice restoration schemes.
CEMEX was chosen as the winner from among seven other high quality submissions for the prestigious trophy. Work to cultivate the former sand and gravel pits as a home for wildlife began in 1966, when the resulting nature reserve was officially opened by naturalist film-maker Sir David Attenborough.
Nearly 40 years later in 2005, Sir David returned to the site to open a new energy efficient and eco-friendly visitor centre. The centre provides an array of facilities which includes educational programmes, displays, refreshments, conference rooms as well as a focal point for the reserve's activities.
In the first week of opening it attracted over 4000 visitors. Sand and gravel excavations at Attenborough south west of Nottingham started in 1929 and has contributed to the creation of lakes and islands.
Today's nature reserve covers 365 hectares of former gravel pits and was the first reserve established by the Wildlife Trust. It is home to a wide range of aquatic and waterside habitants. Over the years, the reserve has attracted more than 250 species of birds, including herons, kingfishers and bitterns.
The Quarry Products Association gave CEMEX and the Nottinghamshire Wildlife Trust special credit for earning the right to have their names on the Cooper Heyman Cup.
At the awards presentation the QPA referred to the Attenborough Quarry site as "not only a fantastic example of restoration, but also a special resource for the people living near the site. The reserve is a credit to this industry and this country's ecology."
The Restoration Award with Special Merit was presented to CEMEX's Powburn Quarry for working closely with local organisations such as the Northumberland Wildlife Trust and the River Tweed Commissioner to restore the two lakes, previously worked as part of the site.
The aims of the restoration work are to provide habitat for local wildlife and encourage biodiversity.
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Notes to editors:
Photographs For more information or good quality photographs, please contact
Marit Meyer-Bell
01932 583208
marit.meyer-bell@cemex.com.
Cooper Heyman Trophy The silver Cooper Heyman trophy was given to SAGA (an organisation which predates the QPA) in 1982 by Mrs Isobel Cooper-Heyman in memory of her husband.
The late Ernest Cooper-Heyman. "Cooper", as he preferred to be known, was chairman of Slabcrete and took particular pleasure in the success of Windmill Quarry in the 1971 Awards.The cup, which was made in 1896, is ornamented with an eagle, melons, pomegranates and other fruit, foliage and flowers and engraved with the words "Do paint the meadows with delight" from Shakespeare's Love's Labour's Lost.
CEMEX is a global building solutions company and leading supplier of cement, ready-mixed concrete and aggregates. In the UK, CEMEX also has a significant share of the asphalt, concrete block and mortar markets. The company has a national supply network in the UK with over 500 locations, to ensure that quality building materials is available to customers locally.
For more information, see www.cemex.co.uk or www.cemex.com.