Roofing specialist of the year

Winner

Its other devotees include Bovis Lend Lease, Stanhope, Carillion, Sir Robert McAlpine and BAA, all of whom have partnering or preferred supplier arrangements with the firm. What makes Prater so attractive? Well, there’s its determination to adopt modular roofing product, its exemplary health and safety performance – it recently received a maximum five-star rating in a British Safety Council audit – and its excellent relationship with its suppliers. Still not convinced? Take a look at the undulating roof of the Robin Hood airport near Doncaster: this is a company that can rise to any design challenge.

Prater added a unique touch to the Robin Hood airport with its undulating roof

Highly commended

The cladding specialist of the year is not too shabby at roofing either and demonstrated its prowess on the National Assembly for Wales. The sceptics said Richard Rogers’ roof design, for six adjoining peaks, couldn’t be built. Lakesmere’s 3D model proved them wrong and its collaboration with the steel-frame installer ensured that the 3000 m2 of aluminium standing-seam panels went on without compromising the architect’s vision.

Runners-up

Derbyshire-based Advanced offers its clients all kinds of options, but its heart is in green and bio-diverse roofs. If it can’t install one on your building, it will make its product fully recyclable or reusable. It has also piloted an initiative to recycle membrane waste created on site. All this helped it to earn ISO 140001, the international standard for environmental management. That’s not its only gong: it has won a British Safety Council national award.

Briggs Roofing & Cladding

Briggs’ UK profits soared 170% to £1.25m last year. And with good reason: it has developed expertise in cold applied liquid waterproofing and maintenance and has won clients such as the Palace of Westminster, Asda and NHS Procure 21. It also won a place on the Hull City Council framework for school modernisation and has taken on an apprentice picked from the local community.

DW Tilley Roofing & Cladding

2005 saw a revolution at this company. It bought Four Seasons Roofing, won £9.7m of work (so far) and bolstered its reputation for customer service by taking on a tricky job for Kerry Foods. Tasked to remove and replace asbestos sheeting, it wasn’t going to let bad weather get in its way. Instead, it installed a temporary over-roof to get the job done on time and budget. Just to cap this annus mirabilis, it was named one of the best roofing contractors in the country.