2025 Excellence awards
David Porter, DfI.
Mark Spence. CEF Chief Executive.
Karen McShane, Head Judge.
CEF CALLS ON THE NI EXECUTIVE TO SHOW LEADERSHIP AND AMBITION TO ADDRESS NORTHERN IRELAND’S CRUMBLING INFRASTRUCTURE… A pledge to deliver the infrastructure Northern Ireland needs and deserves
As Northern Ireland’s construction industry came together to celebrate the 26th edition of the CEF Excellence Awards, CEF Chief Executive Mark Spence used his address to urge the NI Executive to urgently prioritise dealing with our infrastructure crisis. The 2025 Awards were the biggest to date with over 30 Award winners on the evening and nearly 600 in attendance at the Crowne Plaza in Belfast. NI Builder is proud to have been part of the team behind this year’s Awards, working hard to help create one of the standout nights in the industry from stunning visuals to the seamless
running of the event. The event was hosted by Claire McCollum and Nick Knowles, with a keynote address from David Porter, Director of Engineering at the Department for Infrastructure and President of the Institution of Civil Engineers. Other speakers on the evening included CEF President Bryan Vaughan, CEF Excellence Awards Head Judge Karen McShane and headline sponsor hubexo UK Vice President David Thompson. “Last year, we set a challenge for the then Infrastructure Minister, John O’Dowd, to engage with our industry and to exhaust every opportunity to increase infrastructure investment,” said Mark.
“Since then, his successor, Liz Kimmins, has shown herself to be a thoughtful and diligent listener. The Minister values detail and understanding before taking a position and, under her leadership, we have seen the start of planning reforms, reviews of bonds and targeted interventions that have helped unlock thousands of much-needed homes previously blocked by wastewater capacity constraints. “Such one-off investments in wastewater are very welcome, but they cannot disguise, and importantly, we must not be distracted from, the scale of the challenges we still face.” Such challenges were identified as
20 | NI BUILDER
FOLLOW US ON:
www.nibuilder.co.uk
Made with FlippingBook - professional solution for displaying marketing and sales documents online