A council team has been named as the best in the country at a national awards ceremony.
Durham County Council’s building and facilitates maintenance team has been named as Best Service Team of the Year in the Facilities Management and Building Cleaning Service category at the 2019 APSE awards.
The APSE awards encourage and celebrate excellence in the public sector by measuring and comparing local authority services across the UK.
The building and facilities maintenance team, which provides construction services and building maintenance support to the council and local businesses, is an innovative and award-winning service, providing a one-stop-shop facilities management solution to customers across the North East.
Through training and investing in innovative cleaning equipment, it has developed a facilities maintenance and cleaning service that is achieving financial savings, providing an excellent high-quality value for money commercial service, whilst ensuring the highest safety standards are maintained.
At the ceremony, they were praised for their continuous drive to provide an excellent service to customers.
The same team has recently completed construction of Durham Sixth Form Centre’s new media facility. The £3.4 million project saw the development of a three-story, state of the art digital media centre, which included a TV studio and cinema.
Cllr Brian Stephens, Durham County Council’s Cabinet member for neighbourhoods and local partnerships, said: “This award is a true reflection of the often-unseen hard work that goes on across the council’s property portfolio on a daily basis.
“The team continuously delivers top-quality projects across County Durham and the North East, from helping customers with repairs and maintenance services, to constructing state of the art new buildings. The award is truly deserved.”