Addington Capital, the asset management and investment company announces new lettings at its Cardiff shopping centre: Queens Arcade: – 3,500 sq ft  let to Shaws, The Drapers – 1,000 sq ft let to Leisure Time –2,000 sq ft let to Café Artgiano – 750 sq ft let to Forget Me Not Gifts   These complete the flurry of deals in 2015 at the circa 180,000 sq ft Shopping Centre, that Addington Capital acquired as part of the Sapphire Portfolio in March 2011.  These recent lettings add to the various other deals to national retailers such as Skechers, Two Seasons, Christopher George Jewellers, Animal, The Entertainer, Cancer Research, No 1 Currency, Perfect Home and now mean that the scheme is fully let. The owners of the scheme have also installed a new children’s soft play area within the Lower Ground Floor Mall to provide a further free attraction in the scheme. Commenting Alex Wagstaff, Partner and Head of Retail  at Addington Capital said, ” We are seeing a lot more confidence in the occupational side of the shopping centre market with more retailers looking for space. We are delighted that Queens Arcade is now fully let and the scheme is going from strength to strength.  Cardiff is a vibrant city with active demand for good retail space and we will continue to promote and actively manage our scheme.” The letting agents for Queens Arcade Shopping Centre are Calan Retail and GCW.

A PIONEERING Notts project is being launched this week – to shine a spotlight on jobs and skills within the construction sector, and encourage more young people into the industry. BE Inspired aims to combat the skills gap locally following news that the skills gap is widening across the construction sector with fewer young people choosing professions in architecture, surveying, engineering, project management and planning. Nottingham Trent University is linking with the Construction Industry Council to create BE Inspired – a competition for students from Nottingham Business School and the School of Architecture, Design and the Built Environment at Nottingham Trent University. Students will be asked to join forces and produce a three-minute video and outline social media campaign aimed at young people. The project will aim to engage and inform young people that a career in the construction industry offers lots of opportunity. Maria Willis, of Construction Coach and chair of the East Midlands Construction Industry Council, is working with the university to help launch BE Inspired. She said: “The essence of the brief is The Apprentice meets Dragon’s Den style competition with NTU students. We want students to design a social media campaign to include video and involvement from young people in the industry to attract young people into construction – and to draw attention to the many professions there are within the sector.” Sponsors of BE Inspired are construction firm Laing O’Rourke, construction consultancy company Gleeds, consultancy and construction firm Mace, leading Midlands property agents Innes England, creative agency RizkMcCay and specialist construction PR agency Cartwright Communications. Each sponsor is getting involved in BE Inspired and offering support to the students who sign up. The competition launches on Thursday with speed networking for students from the two schools to form teams. In November, the teams will present their initial ideas to a Dragons’ Den-style panel made up of sponsors and partners. In January, teams will be shortlisted and asked to present their strategies to the panel. In March, there will be an official launch event and prize-giving at Antenna in Nottingham to show the winning team’s video. The package will then be used in industry to encourage young people into the construction sector. Winners of the competition will not only get a cash prize, but also a valuable insight into the workings of property and construction. Tim Garratt, MD of sponsor Innes England, said: “Innes England is delighted to sponsor BE Inspired. It’s important that we all as an industry engage to ensure that we are bringing new talent into the profession. During the recession, we found that young people weren’t going into surveying because job roles had decreased – now leaving us short of new talent.” With around 35% of career advisers believing that a career in construction is unattractive, many perceive the industry to have a non-academic career path – and as a result fewer young people are going into roles in architecture, project management and construction, said Maria. She added: “This competition will help students put business theory into practice and helps educate the educators. This is also a chance for students to network and engage with top employers in order for them to understand more about what is available. “Students will be working together to improve on team working skills and also liaise with our sponsor employers about the possibility of gaining summer internships.” Fiona Winfield, Nottingham Trent University employability coordinator, said: “Be Inspired gives our students the chance to develop their transferable skills and enhance their employability. It’s also a great opportunity for them to work closely with employers and build their professional contacts, all while learning about an industry in which they may decide to follow a career path when they graduate.”

The existing ProCure21+ (P21+) Framework expires in September 2016 and we are announcing the commencement of the procurement process for a successor framework. The procurement process will be undertaken in accordance with the provisions of the Public Contracts Regulations 2015 and a Prior Information Notice (|PIN) will be issued in the near future for publication by the Official Journal of the European Union and Contracts Finder. The procurement process will be completed by the end of September 2016. P21+ is a Capital Construction Framework run by the Department of Health (DH) for the NHS. It provides clients access to Fully Integrated Supply-Chains (main building contractor working with designers and SMEs) without NHS Trusts needing to undertake a lengthy and costly tender process themselves whilst enabling the delivery of cost efficiency savings for the NHS.  Trusts select a Principal Supply Chain Partner (PSCP) and their Supply Chain that have been pre-tendered (i.e. selected via a tender process for the framework) by the DH. Once engaged, trusts will directly develop and deliver the scheme in collaboration with the PSCP and their Supply Chain, in accordance with the provisions of the Framework Agreement. DH provides implementation guidance, guidance tools, training and performance management of the PSCPs and their Supply Chains. The ProCure21 Frameworks, first started in 2003,  have delivered over £4 billion worth of projects; they range from ongoing maintenance/small works to major (> £50 million) high profile schemes. Trusts spend around £600 million per annum through the framework, equivalent to a quarter of their share of the total public capital budget. The major benefits to the NHS are that projects are being completed on time and to budget and to the required quality or better and DH has been able to collaborate with the NHS and industry to deliver cost efficiency savings to meet Cabinet Office targets. The current ProCure21+ Framework has recently received the following awards: •         The British Construction Industry Award 2015 – Product Design Innovation Award – Building (for the repeatable rooms) – received on Wednesday 14th October 2015 •         The National Construction Excellence Award 2015 for Integration and Collaborative Working (for the repeatable rooms) – received on Friday 23rd October 2015 More information on the current P21+ Framework can be found on the P21+ website: www.procure21plus.nhs.uk