McAleer & Rushe has been recognised with two honours at the London Construction Awards 2025, taking home:
- Winner – Excellence in Community Engagement
- Runner Up – Excellence in Sustainability (Project) for Taxi House, Westbourne Park
Hosted by comedian Seann Walsh, the event brought together more than 450 industry professionals for a spectacular evening celebrating the very best of the UK’s built environment.
These achievements are a testament to the dedication of McAleer & Rushe’s people, the collaboration of its partners, and the trust of its clients, all of whom share the company’s vision of creating places that deliver a positive and lasting impact.
Winner | Excellence in Community Engagement
The Excellence in Community Engagement award celebrates McAleer & Rushe’s strategic, embedded approach to understanding and responding to local needs, ensuring every development leaves behind a positive legacy.
With a commitment to meaningful engagement deeply ingrained in every aspect of its work, McAleer & Rushe develops a bespoke Engagement Plan for each project, focused on four key pillars; education, employment, wellbeing, and the environment, enabling the company to deliver targeted initiatives that create sustainable, long-term benefits within the communities it serves.
In 2024 alone, McAleer & Rushe delivered more than 200 community-focused activities, including educational programmes that inspired over 2,000 young people, and facilitated 135 apprenticeships and 125 work placements, helping to build clear pathways into employment and foster interest in the construction industry.
Partnering with local outreach programmes in Southbank, Bermondsey, and Lambeth, McAleer & Rushe’s NEETs Programme provides structured routes into the workforce, helping participants build confidence, develop employability skills, and set meaningful career goals.
Through collaborations with organisations such as the Careers Enterprise Trust, Construction Youth Trust, and community partnerships with the Greenwich Community Fund, The Baytree Centre, St Luke’s Community Kitchen, and Age UK, McAleer & Rushe continues to deliver measurable social value across London. In 2024, the company also raised over £150,000 in support of community and charitable causes.
The judges commented that we stood out for our “strategic, embedded approach to community engagement, delivering measurable social, environmental, and economic impact across multiple projects,” and highlighted Taxi House for its “innovative sustainability measures, local job creation, and meaningful community involvement”.
Runner Up | Excellence in Sustainability, Project, Taxi House, Westbourne Park
Taxi House, delivered for Cheyne Capital, has transformed the former London Taxi Drivers’ Association headquarters into a vibrant mixed-use hotel-led development along the Grand Union Canal. Taxi
Anchored by McAleer & Rushe’s commitment to achieving Net Zero carbon by 2045, the project set out to reduce embodied and operational carbon, implement circular economy principles, and foster social value. These goals were exceeded through rigorous monitoring, innovative methods, and collaborative delivery, demonstrating how the scheme successfully balances environmental innovation with meaningful social and economic impact, and exemplifies how sustainable construction can create places where communities and businesses thrive.
The development achieved a BREEAM ‘Outstanding’ rating at design stage, placing it among fewer than 1% of UK non-domestic buildings, and incorporates 23,700 sq ft of biodiverse green roofs. Sustainability highlights include a 60% reduction in operational carbon emissions against the GLA baseline, the use of barge transport to cut construction emissions by 45%, and 99.8% of waste diverted from landfill through the use of recycled and responsibly sourced materials.
The standout innovation was the use of canal barge transport for construction materials, removing the need for 40–50 lorry trips per barge journey. This reduced emissions, eased road congestion, and improved air quality in a densely populated area.
Delivering measurable social value, the project created 24 apprenticeships, 22 local jobs, and 28 NEETs placements, while engaging 176 students through education and employment initiatives. The scheme also provides 15,000 sq ft of affordable workspace and opens up public access to the canal for the first time, creating new spaces that connect and uplift the community.
Across the wider business, McAleer & Rushe continues to advance its sustainability performance, with achievements in 2024 including a 30% reduction in emissions since 2019, saving over 304,000 litres of fuel and cutting 840 tonnes of CO₂e through carbon-saving technologies. The company has also achieved a 17% reduction in flight travel, a 14% cut in water usage, and 30% less construction waste, with 99% diverted from landfill and 100% of materials now responsibly sourced.
