April 28, 2016

Offsite specialist strengthens board

Former Skanska director Colin Courtney has joined the board of offsite modular construction company The McAvoy Group as a non-executive director. Above: Colin Courtney Colin Courtney spent most of his career with Skanska until 2012, latterly as business development & strategy director. He then joined J Murphy & Sons for

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Northumbrian to embark on £2.5m sewer upgrade

Northumbrian Water has announced it will embark on a £2.5 million upgrade to its sewerage network in a town in County Durham next month. The company will work in partnership with Natural England on the project, which will start on Monday 12 September 2016 and run until

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Keyline Wins RoSPA Gold Award

Recently winning a Gold RoSPA Occupational Health and Safety Award, Keyline has recently been highlighted as one of those organisations taking health and safety as a foremost concern. The company, renown as a specialist in the provision of drainage and civils solutions, as well as heavy building materials, came into

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Issue 323 : Dec 2024

April 28, 2016

Offsite specialist strengthens board

Former Skanska director Colin Courtney has joined the board of offsite modular construction company The McAvoy Group as a non-executive director. Above: Colin Courtney Colin Courtney spent most of his career with Skanska until 2012, latterly as business development & strategy director. He then joined J Murphy & Sons for a couple of years in a similar role. The McAvoy Group is looking to him to help with its own strategic development programme. McAvoy Group executive chairperson Orla Corr said the appointment was reflective of the company’s desire to attract the industry’s top talent. “We are delighted to welcome someone of Colin’s undoubted calibre to McAvoy as we seek to continue to roll out our ambitious strategic plan,” she said. “We have seen a number of important successes in recent years including achieving placements on several major UK frameworks and delivering some great work across the UK and Ireland. We are also proud to be the first offsite modular company to be represented on the recently established Offsite Management School and to have been the first offsite construction company in the UK to achieve Building Information Management (BIM) Level 2 certification.  These are important milestones for McAvoy as we seek to consolidate our position in the marketplace and pursue excellence across all aspects of our business.” In 2013 Colin Courtney assisted with the development of the joint government/industry strategy for construction, Construction 2025. He is also a past member of the government’s Green Construction Board and chaired its promotion working group.   This article was published on 6 May 2016 (last updated on 6 May 2016). Source link

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Northumbrian to embark on £2.5m sewer upgrade

Northumbrian Water has announced it will embark on a £2.5 million upgrade to its sewerage network in a town in County Durham next month. The company will work in partnership with Natural England on the project, which will start on Monday 12 September 2016 and run until May 2017. The work will involve replacing existing pipework, which is currently in poor repair and risks causing pollution in Castle Eden Dene National Nature Reserve near Peterlee. Also as part of the scheme, Northumbrian will remove non-native trees, which were planted in the reserve in the 1970s. It said this will “maximise benefits” for wildlife by reshaping the natural environment. The project will require the creation of site entrances and exits from Durham Way, to access the land on the north side of Castle Eden Dene. Northumbrian Water will work with Natural England to restore these, once work is completed. Northumbrian Water project manager Sean Barry said: “This project will help to protect the Dene and the burn which runs through it, from future risks of pollution. “As someone who grew up in the area and still lives close to Castle Eden Dene, I know how important the conservation of the site is to residents and visitors, so while this is a delicate project, it will be handled with care and I look forward to leaving the dene ready for the return and resurgence of its natural species.” Natural England senior reserve manager Chris Evans said: “This project is a great example of how Natural England is working in partnership with Northumbrian Water across the North East. “We will be working closely with their team and are confident there will be real benefits for wildlife on the site once works are complete”. Source link

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Keyline Wins RoSPA Gold Award

Recently winning a Gold RoSPA Occupational Health and Safety Award, Keyline has recently been highlighted as one of those organisations taking health and safety as a foremost concern. The company, renown as a specialist in the provision of drainage and civils solutions, as well as heavy building materials, came into the award following on from being celebrated for its markedly responsible standards for health and safety as perceived over the course of the past year. Most specifically, praise was given for the integral role played by both senior managers and directors in the overarching health and safety stratagems of the company. This saw a heavy focus on integrating all members of the Keyline team in the health and safety process, as well as typical forms of engagement to ensure a complete health and safety culture. A core part of this saw a considerable focus on proper risk assessments, enabling the company to adapt health and safety procedures in line with the relative risks perceived by a health and safety conscious workforce. Nodding towards the company’s delight in receiving the award, as well as how it underlines how far the company has come in achieving first-class results for health and safety processes, Keyline’s Safety Director, Richard Byrne provided commentary on the win. He said: “Our obligation to health and safety extends to our colleagues, the contractors we employ, our customers, stakeholders that we work with, and members of the public. We are extremely proud that this effort has been acknowledged by RoSPA.” The event also tied in with RoSPA’s 60th anniversary for its Health and Safety Awards, with the scheme having existed for a more extended period of time than any like-schemes in the industry. As such, success at the RoSPA awards is quite traditionally looked upon as the premier mark of success for health and safety procedures.

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Buy-to-Let Investors and Second Home Owners Make up Large Proportion of Prime London Market Purchases

It has been reported that, of those property purchases made within the prime London market, three out of five were in fact by buy-to-let investors and owners of second homes for 2016’s first quarter. Also playing a role in boosting the volume of sales undertaken with cash, as highlighted in Marsh & Parsons’ latest London Property Monitor report. Highlighted as the most prominent buyer archetype for the first quarter, it can be observed that buy-to-let investors made up some 36% of all those purchases in the first quarter. This comes during the build-up to the stamp duty reforms, of course, with predictions being that many buy-to-let investors rushed to push their purchases through before the new regulation would come into force. The spike can be best highlighted when compared with the figures of the final quarter of 2015, where a far lower proportion of 26% was reported. Of course, this has then also showcased a renewed influence of investors within the wider property market, but not yet hitting the highs of 2014, where the share of the market estimated to be of investors reached a notable proportion of 47%. Following on from buy-to-let investors, buyers of secondary homes then made up the second largest portion of the market for the prime London sector, serving a value only marginally shy of a doubled proportion of market investment – 14% for the final quarter of 2015, then jumping up to 23% for the first quarter of this year. These combined figures then make up some 59% of the total amount of purchases within the prime London market, yet this value is reportedly even higher when looking more specifically at the prime central London market, where figures showed a 76% proportion of the market being attributed to the combination of these two investor archetypes.

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