Keith Osborne, editor of Show House magazine, speaks to Daniel Ferguson, Bellway Durham’s head of construction, to find out more about the company winning Gold at the WhatHouse? Awards 2025.
Daniel Ferguson took to the stage at the WhatHouse? Awards 2025 to collect Gold for Best Exterior Design, presented to Bellway Durham for its development Hedworths Green at Lambton Park, located just a couple of miles from Chester-le-Street.
The judges hailed it as “a development of exceptional visual integrity and interest – elegant, confident, and timeless. Lambton Park demonstrates how strong design leadership and thoughtful control can create a contemporary neighbourhood that feels instantly established, welcoming and enduringly beautiful.”
Ferguson is the division’s head of construction, leading his team in delivering this award-winning project and others across County Durham and the North East region. He’s been at the company for over seven years now, the last 15 months of which have been in his current role.
He says: “I’ve been involved in Hedworths Green pretty much from the start. Design, site start, mobilisation, site setup, leading on to infrastructure works and then eventually into house build works.”
He had quickly recognised the scheme’s award-winning potential.
“From reviewing early designs and the house types and the material palette, you knew it was going to be a special development, something a little bit different. When you walk around the site, the plots look really nice, individually designed, the standard of finish and the materials that we’re using are all really high quality. The layout around the green area and the architectural variety and the consistency of the detail work all pulled together just to make a really nice-looking development.”
The award has been earned by the combined efforts and coordination of multiple departments.
“The whole division has really had to pull together to bring something like this to life. It’s not just the construction element, there’s input from the land and planning team, the technical team, the commercial team and the buying team in terms of sourcing the materials and procuring them at the right price.”
“There’s constant communication going on between the construction, technical and commercial teams to make sure that any revisions or any updates are communicated clearly and precisely down to the teams on the ground out on site.”
Ferguson has attended many awards ceremonies, but last year’s was his first WhatHouse? Awards luncheon and well worth the journey for him and the Bellway team, he says.
“It was nice to see a lot of people from within the industry that you don’t get to see on a day-to-day basis, and a few familiar faces, people that I’ve met quite a few times. Equally, there are people there that maybe you’ve worked with previously in the industry that you haven’t seen for a long time, it was good to catch up. For those I’d had communication with either via the phone or via email, it was nice to put a face to a name. It was really enjoyable.”
“There were a couple of different suppliers that I spoke to at the event that we’re now starting to work on a more regular basis. Suppliers that we’ve maybe spoken to on an email every now and again, but following conversations at the event, we’ve now brought them in, starting to work with them to supply various services that they offer.”
Ferguson adds that there is room for optimism in his part of the country this year.
“The market itself, as it’s widely documented, is difficult at the minute, but we seem to be doing quite well. There’s an appetite there that seems to be gradually increasing. I think we have gone through some tough times in the last couple of years, but I certainly can see light at the end of the tunnel. We’ve got an increased forward order book and we’re starting to have more visitors to all of our developments. So I think the confidence in the market is growing again and I think we can start to see some positivity coming from that.”
Bellway Durham is also working hard to buck the trend on the construction skills shortage, Ferguson says.
“We have a lot of long-term partnerships with various companies and outlets. We encourage our subcontractors to bring through apprentices, to support them and to give them the right experiences and the right opportunity. And on the back of that, we also have our own directly employed apprentice bricklayers and apprentice joiners.”
“So we’re really working hard to bring us through the next crop of tradespeople. And we can see some really, really good candidates.”
