Recolight, the UK’s leading lighting compliance scheme, has welcomed the publication of the UK’s 2015 national WEEE recycling data. The data, released by the Environment Agency (EA), shows a significant growth in the lamp collection rate in 2015: Year Lamps Luminaires2012 39.5% 0.59%2013 52.8% 1.95%2014 29.3%
Welsh Water says it will give its three million customers a chance to voice their opinions on how the company should invest in services in the future. The non-profit water and sewerage firm does not have shareholders but will permit customers to offer views on how the company board should
The National Audit Office has said that the government has had a slow start to its land disposal programme, with the Department for Communities and Local Government only releasing enough land for 8,580 homes so far. Since the new land disposal programme was launched 10 months ago, the DCLG has
The Chartered Institute of Building (CIOB) has appointed a new president who is focused on making professional ethics one of his main themes during his year in office. A director of Turner & Townsend Project Management, Paul Nash has become the CIOB’s 113th president and one of the few to
A think tank is investigating whether mental health is the forgotten issue in industry health and safety programmes. Four organisations – The Samaritans, CIBSE Patrons, Electrical Contractors’’ Association (ECA) and The Building Engineering Services Association (BESA) – have teamed up to campaign for mental health issues and workplace stress to
Branded restaurant chains have shown their hunger for Leeds by opening 24 new restaurants in the city over the last four years, according to international real estate advisor Savills. The group has reported that since 2012 the number of multiple restaurant brands in the city has risen by 209% from
A plumber from Torbay and the company who contracted him have been prosecuted after it was found that they had left their work in a dangerous condition at a Torquay home. Exeter Crown Court heard that the illegal gas fitter, Mark Baker, who was also an unregistered plumber, was contracted
Recolight, the UK’s leading lighting compliance scheme, has welcomed the publication of the UK’s 2015 national WEEE recycling data. The data, released by the Environment Agency (EA), shows a significant growth in the lamp collection rate in 2015: Year Lamps Luminaires2012 39.5% 0.59%2013 52.8% 1.95%2014 29.3% 3.6%2015 43.6% 4.4% Commenting on the news, Nigel Harvey, Recolight CEO explains “It is particularly pleasing to see that the 2015 recycling rate bounced back up from 2014. This is probably due, in part, to the recycling of fluorescent waste resulting from major LED integrated luminaire roll outs in business premises across the UK. The lamp recycling rate from 2013 to 2014 saw a drop when, for the first time, the data included LED lamps as well as Gas Discharge Lamps. With very large quantities of LEDs being sold – but very few being returned as WEEE, the inclusion of LEDs inevitably reduced the rate.” Turning to the luminaire recycling rate, he added “The luminaire recycling rate has increased from 2014 to 2015. However, the tonnage of luminaires collected in 2015 is only 5% higher than in 2014. The rate increase is therefore primarily due to the 12.7% reduction in the tonnage of luminaires reported as put on the market. This reduction is likely to be a result of dual use classification, which means that any luminaires that could be used by consumers are now out of scope of the WEEE Regulations.” Recolight launched its luminaire compliance service in 2013, and that has helped to double the luminaire collection rate from 2013 to 2015. Many luminaires continue to be returned as scrap, and not properly reported and recycled as WEEE, and this contributes to the low recycling rate. Note: The recycling rates above were calculated by dividing the tonnage of WEEE reported by all PCSs, by the tonnage of EEE placed on the market in the same year, for luminaires (category 5) and lamps (category 13). These calculations do not include non-obligated WEEE. Source link
Welsh Water says it will give its three million customers a chance to voice their opinions on how the company should invest in services in the future. The non-profit water and sewerage firm does not have shareholders but will permit customers to offer views on how the company board should prioritise the spending of the company’s financial gains, which are forecast to be £30 million next year. The consultation process will last for 10 weeks and will offer various options for customers to choose from on the organisation website, including money off water and sewerage bills, more help for those who are struggling to pay their bills, investing in more pumps and water treatment works and support for educational and recreational schemes in communities. Chris Jones, Chief Executive at Welsh Water, said that the move is an unparalleled one as it gives people a real say in how they should spend any returns they achieve, which he believes reflects how their non-profit status is rooted in its work with customers and for customers. He added: “As we do not have any shareholders, we reinvest money in our network, support our customers and embed innovation to keep our service modern, efficient and at an affordable price.” The water supplier announced last month that it was to invest a further £32 million into its services in 2016, along with helping lower income homes after is recorded its best year in overall performance since it became non-profit in 2001. The consultation will be launched on July 11 and will run through until September 19. Last month, Welsh Water’s Head of Energy, Mike Pedley, said that “Companies need to be prepared to use their assets as flexibly as possible.” He believes that the company should provide a service that not only benefits themselves but also the country in general.
The National Audit Office has said that the government has had a slow start to its land disposal programme, with the Department for Communities and Local Government only releasing enough land for 8,580 homes so far. Since the new land disposal programme was launched 10 months ago, the DCLG has met just 5% of its commitment. It released a further three per cent of land, although the Homes and Communities Agency, which takes responsibility for the collection of information from government departments, has yet to find enough evidence to prove that the additional land will be used for housing. The NAO has said that DCLG must get rid of more sites in all of the next four months than the best performing year in any of the former land disposal schemes. Laid out in last year’s spending review, the 160,000 home target was set out to help the government in the delivery of one million homes by the end of the current parliament. June 2011 saw the government set up its first land disposal programme which ran through to March last year. Its target was to release sufficient land for 100,000 homes by 2015. However, last June’s NAO report revealed that the government had disposed of only enough capacity to build 109,590 new homes across just under 1,000 sites. However, the target was only a measure of the notional number of expected homes, rather than the actual number of homes built. The latest report stated that government departments have so far identified additional land capacity for another 104,461 homes, or 65% of the programme. However, just over half of the housing capacity is on high risk sites. The DCLG defines high risk sites as those which have at least one issue that prevents the exchange of contracts before 2020 and the NAO has said that this includes operational sites.
The Chartered Institute of Building (CIOB) has appointed a new president who is focused on making professional ethics one of his main themes during his year in office. A director of Turner & Townsend Project Management, Paul Nash has become the CIOB’s 113th president and one of the few to have carried out work in both the consultancy and contracting sides of the sector. He replaces outgoing president Chris Chivers. In his first address to his colleagues, Mr Nash spoke about his desire to make ethics one of his core themes for the forthcoming year. He said that everyone in the CIOB must take responsibility for the industry’s reputation and for the wellbeing of those who work in it, regardless of the country we are working in. “Ethics defines what it means to be a professional. Behaving ethically entails tough decisions. And we have a responsibility to help our members make those right decisions,” he added. In the next year, the CIOB has said that it will release a simplified code of conduct that will outline what is expected of a member of the CIOB, while the CIOB Academy will develop new learning modules on governance and ethics. Paul Nash was a director of Sweett from 2004 to 2012 and was fined £1.4 million earlier in the year for bribery offences. Last month, the CIOB supported an industry drive for more military recruits by creating a clear route into membership for people with military experience. The move came after the group conducted a survey of more than 700 construction professionals, 77% of which said that ex-service personnel could help to plug the industry’s management skills gap. By 2020, the UK needs around 230,000 recruits and with 75% of UK contractors operating at or near to full capacity, skills shortages are no longer confined to the trades: demand for professional technical and managerial staff is escalating.
A think tank is investigating whether mental health is the forgotten issue in industry health and safety programmes. Four organisations – The Samaritans, CIBSE Patrons, Electrical Contractors’’ Association (ECA) and The Building Engineering Services Association (BESA) – have teamed up to campaign for mental health issues and workplace stress to be addressed in the building engineering services sector. The campaign comes after a joint survey from ECA and BESA found that 31% of building engineering service companies admitted that they found on-site mental health issues difficult to manage. Meanwhile, four in five of the firms surveyed also said that they believe mental health issues in the workplace will have a growing impact on them over the next vie to ten year period. Paul McLaughlin, BESA Chief Executive, said that mental health remains the forgotten health and safety issue. “As an industry, we have made impressive progress on workplace safety in the past 20 years, but on health – and mental health in particular – we still have a long way to go,” he said. The think tank says that the survey was a good initiative that was aimed at a key demographic, but we still have to consider the bigger picture and find out the extent to which mental health issues are affecting individual members of teams. Their goal is now to find out whether mental health is a big issue for organisations. These themes will form the basis of discussion at this month’s think tank discussion, with the following questions to be specifically addressed: Are workplace stress and other mental health concerns a “forgotten health and safety” issue? Are links between stress and mental health being made? What initiatives have you been involved with? Is a strong HR department key to good mental health awareness? And what do you see as the true extent of the problem? The group is now encouraging industry workers to respond to the questions.
Branded restaurant chains have shown their hunger for Leeds by opening 24 new restaurants in the city over the last four years, according to international real estate advisor Savills. The group has reported that since 2012 the number of multiple restaurant brands in the city has risen by 209% from 22 to 46. Among those to have branched out into Yorkshire’s main city are Turtle Bay, Gusto and Bill’s, resulting in the number of units occupied by branded restaurants more than doubling from 25 to 52 in the same time frame. Savills’ recent ‘Casual Dining in the UK’ report showed that Leeds is now home to the second largest overall supply of branded casual dining restaurants in the UK outside of London, with only Manchester having more (78). Leeds’ nearest Yorkshire competitors York and Harrogate also fared well in the report, with York ranked 19th in the list of the UK’s top 50 casual dining towns in terms of supply, while Harrogate also featured in the top 50. Savills Retail Director, Steve Henderson, said that the casual dining scene in Leeds “has swung from mass market to aspirational, with Busaba Eathai, Friends of Ham, Steve Pilling’s Dockyard, tapas bar 53 Degrees North and renowned chefs including Marco Pierre White all due to open in the city over the next 12 months.” He added that while mass market brands have still continued to perform well in their market place, there is a growing trend from consumers to try something different which will continue to drive further growth in branded restaurants in Leeds and elsewhere in major towns and cities. The most numerous and popular casual dining cuisines in the UK remain Italian food restaurants, in particular pizzerias, which account for 45% of branded restaurants in the country, most of which have been around since before 2008 according to Savills.
A plumber from Torbay and the company who contracted him have been prosecuted after it was found that they had left their work in a dangerous condition at a Torquay home. Exeter Crown Court heard that the illegal gas fitter, Mark Baker, who was also an unregistered plumber, was contracted by Marc Robertson, who is the Director of 1st Maintenance, to fit a gas boiler at a Coker Avenue property where the firm was carrying out home improvement work. After the installation of the gas boiler at the property, Mr Baker told the homeowner that he had commissioned the boiler but failed to register the gas boiler with the Local Authority and issued no paperwork, both of which are required by law. Once installed, the homeowner complained about several problems with the gas boiler and things came to a head when a fully qualified gas engineer visited the property on another matter. When at the property, the properly qualified engineer raised concerns about the installation of the gas boiler and as a result the homeowner contacted the Gas Safe Register. An inspector from the Gas Safe Register came across a number of major faults with the work that Mr Baker had carried out and listed the boiler as being in the ‘At Risk’ category, which means it could pose a potential threat to life. Mr Baker, of Daison Crescent, Torquay, pleaded guilty to two gas safety regulation breaches and was sentenced to eight months in prison, suspended for 18 months, and was also ordered to carry out 200 hours of unpaid work, along with over £4,000 in costs. Meanwhile, 1st Maintenance Ltd, of Grange Road, Allacombe, Torquay, also pleaded guilty to one breach of the gas safety regulations and was fined £6,000, along with £640 in costs. Simon Jones, HSE inspector, said: “Mr Baker put lives at risk by undertaking gaswork which he was neither qualified nor registered to undertake, work which put the homeowner’s life at risk.”
