The importance of community engagement

A key part of being a responsible developer is making sure that our essential projects have the minimum impact on the local communities where our new (and existing) infrastructure is located.

Our Fort Augustus substation expansion project is a great example of this, as good communication between ourselves and community stakeholders helped to ensure that two longstanding events in the local calendar were able to go ahead as planned, minus any potential disruption from our essential works.

The combination of an equestrian event, motorbike trials and road-widening activities is a scenario that would jump off the page of any Risk Assessment form, and so when we were approached by the organisers of both the Scottish Endurance Riding Club and The Scottish Six Day Trials and asked if we could alter our work schedules that particular weekend, it didn’t take long for us to say “Yes, of course we’d like to help”.

As part of the pre-construction phase of our project we’re upgrading the road from the A82 through Jenkins Park all the way to the end past Auchterawe. This road is an access route for local residents and so for everyone’s safety we have a traffic management plan in place when the work is going on. However, as the road was also to form part of the route for both the horse and motorbike events, normal traffic management procedures simply wouldn’t have been practical. The decision was therefore made to work out a way of postponing and rescheduling our work, both on the grounds of everyone’s safety and also to allow us continue to strengthen our meaningful community relationships.

The feedback we’ve received from the organisers of these events has been really positive, and the combination of determination and hard work from our teams on the ground has made sure that we’re still on top of the road-widening works. We look forward to our ongoing engagement with residents and key local stakeholders as construction at the site continues; working collaboratively to mitigate and reduce any impact where possible.

For further information of the Fort Augustus substation reinforcements please click here.