The government has given development consent to the world’s largest offshore windfarm, Hornsea Project Two. The windfarm, located off the Yorkshire coast will have a capacity of around 1.8GW and will consist of up to 300 turbines. The Dong Energy owned project is being developed by Smart
Mr Brown’s previous role covered London Overground, DLR, Trams and TfL Corporate. He was also the chair of the Independent Railway Assurance Board for Crossrail and the independent safety expert on the Olympic Delivery Authority Games Transport Safety and Security Committee. Before this he was executive director for health, safety,
Arun District Council has selected Willmott Dixon to build the £15m Littlehampton leisure centre. Above: Artists impression of the new leisure centre Littlehampton’s new leisure centre will have an eight-lane, 25-metre swimming pool, learner pool, gym, dance and cycling studios, sports hall and café. Construction is set to start sometime
Wynn Resorts has spent nearly $20 million on the purchase of a number of homes near Mystic River as part of the ongoing development of Boston’s first casino and hotel resort, the Wynn Boston Harbor. From September 2015 to August 2016, Wynn Resorts purchased 10 residential, commercial, and industrial properties
ArtificialGrass.com has obtained a new apprentice, who will be working at the company’s head office in Market Overton, Rutland. It has been announced that Hannah Barker will be joining the company as a Sales Coordinator. The 23-year-old will join ArtificalGrass.com while completing an ICT Level 2 course as well as
On the 16th May, NASC hosted a meeting with the CEO of Scaffolding, Access & Rigging New Zealand as their London office. The national trade body hosted the meeting with Graham Burke, who was in the UK as part of a family visit and took the opportunity to meet and
Specflue is celebrating their 25th anniversary. The company was first founded in 1992, and at that time there were only five staff members. The company has expanded since then, and now that they are celebrating their silver year the company employs more than 120 people and has a turnover of
Vital Energi has been awarded a Build & Design contract with Mace worth £6.7 million. This contract will deliver a low-carbon energy solution for a development on 145 City Road. The energy solution is being created for the new Atlas building, which is a 152m high building that has 40
The metal and glasswork company, Essential Projects has benefited from an increase to the number of projects that they have been working on. This means that the company has been hiring more staff in order to make sure that they are still offering the same degree of customer service to
Tim Marks in representation of the AEMT and a member of the BSI, IEC and IEDEx committees has been looking in to the issues that could face the Hazardous Area industry when Britain and the UK Parliament have agreed to leave the European Union. Standards, directives and compliance are all
The government has given development consent to the world’s largest offshore windfarm, Hornsea Project Two. The windfarm, located off the Yorkshire coast will have a capacity of around 1.8GW and will consist of up to 300 turbines. The Dong Energy owned project is being developed by Smart Wind, and was approved by business and energy secretary Greg Clark today (16 August). The consent covers the entire project including the turbines, foundations, offshore and onshore substations, array cables and export cables. Clark said: “The UK’s offshore wind industry has grown at an extraordinary rate over the last few years, and is a fundamental part of our plans to build a clean, affordable, secure energy system. “Britain is a global leader in offshore wind, and we’re determined to be one of the leading destinations for investment in renewable energy, which means jobs and economic growth right across the country.” Dong Energy UK country chairman Brent Cheshire said: “Development consent for Hornsea Project Two is very welcome. We have already invested £6 billion in the UK, and Hornsea Project Two provides us with another exciting development opportunity in offshore wind. “A project of this size will help in our efforts to continue reducing the cost of electricity from offshore wind and shows our commitment to investing in the UK.” The Crown Estate director of energy, minerals and infrastructure Huub den Rooijen said: “Offshore wind is already on course to meet 10% of the UK’s electricity demand by 2020. “Major developments of Hornsea Project Two’s scale will pave the way for its continued growth alongside driving down costs, creating high value jobs, and supporting the UK’s transition to a low carbon energy supply.” RenewableUK chief executive Hugh McNeal said: “Today’s announcement is the latest vote of confidence in the UK’s world-beating offshore wind market. This huge infrastructure project will provide much-needed investment and energy security for our country. “Offshore wind represents a massive economic opportunity to the UK and our coastal regions. It is creating new jobs and regenerating local communities”. Source link
Mr Brown’s previous role covered London Overground, DLR, Trams and TfL Corporate. He was also the chair of the Independent Railway Assurance Board for Crossrail and the independent safety expert on the Olympic Delivery Authority Games Transport Safety and Security Committee. Before this he was executive director for health, safety, quality and environment at Tube Lines between 2002 and 2005 as well as holding other senior roles in the sector. Crossrail programme director Simon Wright said: “The Crossrail programme is approaching 75 per cent complete with major fit-out of the tunnels and stations underway. “Martin’s considerable expertise in rail health and safety will be invaluable as we progress towards the start of dynamic testing in November 2017.” Source link
Arun District Council has selected Willmott Dixon to build the £15m Littlehampton leisure centre. Above: Artists impression of the new leisure centre Littlehampton’s new leisure centre will have an eight-lane, 25-metre swimming pool, learner pool, gym, dance and cycling studios, sports hall and café. Construction is set to start sometime in 2017, with the centre built on the site of the current sports dome and overflow car park. The current leisure centre will continue to be used while the new one is under construction but will later be demolished. Willmott Dixon has built more than £100m of leisure facilities in just the past six month, working in Tewkesbury, Dartford, Scarborough, St Albans, Oldham, Hebburn, High Wycombe and Romford. Arun District Council procured Willmott Dixon through the Southern Construction Framework. This article was published on 5 Aug 2016 (last updated on 5 Aug 2016). Source link
Wynn Resorts has spent nearly $20 million on the purchase of a number of homes near Mystic River as part of the ongoing development of Boston’s first casino and hotel resort, the Wynn Boston Harbor. From September 2015 to August 2016, Wynn Resorts purchased 10 residential, commercial, and industrial properties near the casino site in the city of Everett, Massachusetts. In some cases, the prices paid were far above valuations, as reported by the Boston Globe in March this year: “In one transaction, Wynn Resorts bought a home with a small business building in the back, a property assessed at $193,800, for $900,000. In another, a home was assessed at $353,400 and went for $975,000.” Steve Wynn, the casino magnate behind Wynn Resorts and one of the most innovative, 21st-century leisure resort developers, means business with the development of this multi-billion dollar resort. A number of commercial and industrial properties along Route 99 leading up to the casino have been purchased and demolished by the company and several other businesses are making plans to move. A spokesperson for the company, Robert DeSalvio, president of Wynn Boston Harbor, has confirmed intentions to “invest in the overall success of our host community” through “demolition and landscaping to make the entry to our resort spectacular.” He went on to say that plans are being made to “work closely with the city of Everett to bring even more vitality and prosperity to the area.” The $2 billion casino and hotel complex, which also borders the city of Boston, has recently reached construction stage despite a number of costly setbacks along the way. In September 2015, the planning board of the city of Everett approved the plan for the resort after a 27-month process by Wynn Resorts and the state investigating its environmental impact. The company spent roughly $30 million to decontaminate and remediate a 33-acre former chemical plant site, which was inaccessible for nearly 100 years. In a further attempt to move plans forward, Wynn Resorts made a payment of $25 million in 2014 to the city of Boston to alleviate traffic problems at Sullivan Square and agreed to a $1.6 million annual payment to offset any detrimental long-term impacts of the casino resort. This amount was increased further in 2016 by an additional $400,000 per year for the next 15 years and a one-off payment of $750,000 was made to defray any legal costs for the city of Boston relating to attempts to block the development of the casino. In the final week of January 2016, the city of Boston struck an agreement with Wynn Resorts thereby ending its longstanding opposition to casinos and casino activities in the city. Main construction works began on the resort after a final appeal by the city of Somerville was dropped in August 2016. The resort, which will include 629 rooms, six restaurants, a sports bar, dedicated conferencing, and event facilities also feature a year-round harbor walk along Mystic River. This main attraction will feature viewing decks, pathways for bikes and pedestrians, waterfront dining and retail, a performance lawn, and a dedicated water ferry. It is the first of its kind, not only in Boston but also the “largest private single-phase construction project in the history of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts.” Suffolk Construction and Jacobs have been named as the resort’s general contractor and executive architect, respectively and overall design has been managed internally by Wynn Design & Development, LLC, an offshoot of the Wynn organization. Approximately 4,000 union trade jobs and 4,000 permanent operation jobs are expected to be created by the construction of the resort. Initially scheduled to open in 2018, the opening date has been pushed back to 2019. Pic Attribution By Nick Allen [CC BY-SA 4.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0)], via Wikimedia Commons
ArtificialGrass.com has obtained a new apprentice, who will be working at the company’s head office in Market Overton, Rutland. It has been announced that Hannah Barker will be joining the company as a Sales Coordinator. The 23-year-old will join ArtificalGrass.com while completing an ICT Level 2 course as well as her Business Administration Level 2 Diploma at Rutland Adult Learning. The Adult Learning are offered in partnership with Peterborough Regional College. Hannah expects to have completed her apprenticeship in 2018. Hannah is from North Luffenham which is in Rutland. As part of her apprenticeship she attends college once a week and is currently enjoying the new challenge. Before her new role at the artificial grass company, Hannah worked as a Food and Beverage Manager for five years. Now Hannah has embarked on an apprenticeship with the intention of pursuing a career in sales. The market for artificial grass is quite large and hopefully Hannah will have a lot of different opportunities by choosing an apprenticeship with ArtificialGrass.com. Completing an apprenticeship also means that Hannah will be able to work and earn, gaining practical experience while completing her training. The Sales Coordinator role is diverse, and involves a large amount of interacting with customers and offering the best possible customer service. Hannah believes that there is a huge amount of potential at ArtificialGrass.com and she has been commended for her enthusiasm to develop and learn. Hannah has been developing her current skills and has been using them to support her employer as well as to gain her qualification. ArtificialGrass.com is considered the largest supplier of synthetic turf to the builders’ merchant industry. The company also offers installation training as well as other educational programmes in order to support builders’ merchants when they are selling their products. This means that the company is able to capitalize on a growing market.
On the 16th May, NASC hosted a meeting with the CEO of Scaffolding, Access & Rigging New Zealand as their London office. The national trade body hosted the meeting with Graham Burke, who was in the UK as part of a family visit and took the opportunity to meet and have an update meeting with NASC. The two parties took the opportunity to discuss a variety of topic that are of mutual interest. New Zealand CEO and trade body have interests in both the UK and NZ access and scaffolding industries. It is thought that the NASC is a popular trading body. Because of this Graham Burke took a meeting with the NASC in order to see what he could learn from an already established trade bod that is a part of the working at height sector. The Scaffolding Access & Rigging New Zealand is also a trade body and already has around 100 members. The New Zealand body has been making good progress however it has faced a number of challenges because there is a lack support and administration. This means that Graham Burke has to oversee a wide variety of different sectors in order to combat this. Graham Burke has been influential in the progress made by SARNZ which includes being involved in the development of good practice guidelines for the scaffolding industry in New Zealand. Graham Burke has also worked to improve industry standards as well as lobbying for issues like the shortage of skilled scaffolders. The developing relationship between the NASC and SARNZ could be fruitful, with the two training bodies sharing the same concerns and interests. It is unsurprising that the NASC face the same concerns regarding the UK construction industry as SARNZ, and hopefully going forward the relationship between the two trade bodies will benefit the construction industries of both the UK and New Zealand.
Specflue is celebrating their 25th anniversary. The company was first founded in 1992, and at that time there were only five staff members. The company has expanded since then, and now that they are celebrating their silver year the company employs more than 120 people and has a turnover of over £23 million. The company has been operating since 1992 under the same values. These ideals include innovation, while providing a high standard of products and delivering great customer service. Specflue is now one of the leading providers of flue, chimney and renewable heat products in the UK. Specflue is based in Sudbury, Suffolk and has a head office that covers 100,000 sq. ft. When the company started operating in 1992 their workspace measured 4,000 sq. ft. In 2010, the flue and heat product providers opened a new depot in Honiton, Devon in order to provide their services to the west of the country. Their two locations in Honiton and Sudbury means that Specflue can operate for the most southern point up to the Midlands. Specflue also offers their services to locations around the UK outside this area through the use of a number of courier services. The company’s values have combined with their knowledge of its staff in order to allow the company to succeed. The company offer a range of products that is unrivalled; including pellet stoves and biomass boilers, solar thermal and thermal stores. These renewable heat sources offer builders a simple way to make their developments more sustainable, as well as offering the potential to upgrade homes in order to make them more sustainable. Specflue also offers a training centre that is state-of-the-art and includes a mix of different classrooms and practical areas that can lead to improved education and higher standards for those working in the solid fuel and renewable sectors. Specflue’s training centre also improves awareness around available products as well as delivering accredited competency skills, first aid training and national HETAS qualifications.
Vital Energi has been awarded a Build & Design contract with Mace worth £6.7 million. This contract will deliver a low-carbon energy solution for a development on 145 City Road. The energy solution is being created for the new Atlas building, which is a 152m high building that has 40 storeys and forms a part of the £1 billion City Road Basin Development. Once completed, the Atlas building is expected to be the tallest residential building found in London’s Tech City. Vital Energi has been contracted to install the main energy centre which is situated in the basement of the building. The energy centre will be comprised of a 158 kWe CHP engine and also a 2.8MW modular gas boilers and 1.W of water cooled chillers. The sustainable and renewable energy company will also deliver the risers and laterals as well as the heating and the cooling Hydraulic Interface Units that will be a part of more than 300 dwellings that make up the residential building. Because of the height of the Atlas Building, Vital Energi will also have to install a plant room on the 19th floor. It is thought that this plant room will hydraulically separate the heating and chilled water systems which will then make sure that there is enough water pressure delivered to all of the apartments throughout the entire building. As part of their work on the project, Vital Energi have committed to making sure that local communities benefit from the development. The energy solutions company have pledged to create employment and business opportunities in the local area. The team that is working on the Atlas Building have been establishing connections within the Borough of Hackney by offering initiative such as career trade fairs. Vital Energi are using these links that they have created with the borough to see that the development creates the maximum opportunities to benefit the local economy.
The metal and glasswork company, Essential Projects has benefited from an increase to the number of projects that they have been working on. This means that the company has been hiring more staff in order to make sure that they are still offering the same degree of customer service to their clients while also dealing with the larger amount of work. Essential Projects has carried out work for big brand names such as Next, Oakfurinitureland and Waitrose. Essential projects are wanting to expand and offer their bespoke architectural solutions made from steel, carbon fibre, granite, glass, timber and ceramics. These tailored projects are all carried out within budget with efficiency and accuracy. One of the new staff that is now working at Essential Projects is Kieran Hickman. The role Kieran will be carrying out for Essential Projects design engineer. Because of the new jobs that have been won by Essential Projects, Kieran will be a valuable new member of staff. By increasing the number of staff working for Essential, the company hopes that there will even more growth for the business. Kieran’s job specification for Essential will be to complete technical drawings as part of the quotation process. The design impressions created by Kieran must be technical enough to cover the process involved in completing the design. CAD images created by Kieran and the technical nature of the designs will be needed in order to order and procure the correct parts to complete the project. The designs that have been drawn up by Kieran will also help the business collect the correct components as fast as possible. Before he was employed by Essential Projects, Kieran worked for Metreel. In his role as a mechanical design engineer, and began looking for other job prospects after his previous role started to get monotonous. He began his career as an apprentice for an engineering consultancy company, and at his new job, Kieran will be able to use all of the skills he has learnt over the years.
Tim Marks in representation of the AEMT and a member of the BSI, IEC and IEDEx committees has been looking in to the issues that could face the Hazardous Area industry when Britain and the UK Parliament have agreed to leave the European Union. Standards, directives and compliance are all uncertain topics for government during these early stages of Brexit. However, those in the industry are wondering what Brexit will mean for the Hazardous Area industries. And whether there will be an impact on companies that are carrying out work in the UK. Tim Marks made sure that to begin with he had made distinct definitions between standards and directives. It is thought that Technical standards within the Hazardous Area industries cover the best practice, but not mandatory plans put forwards by experts in the industry. Directive however originate in the European Parliament and is then integrated in to the law of the European members. Directives intend on delivering a level playing field for the Union’s members. The directives within the Hazardous Area industry can block trade with Europe, so the UK will still have to conform with them post Brexit. After Brexit then, in order to make trade access to the EU easier the UK would still have to make sure that their products or services abide by the EU directives and have the correct certification. In terms of the users within the Hazardous Area industries, it will also prove unhelpful is the UK stop complying to EU directives, and it would be easier to maintain the status quo. However, the UK could alter the DSEAR which is the regulations for dangerous substances and explosive atmospheres, and would therefore not comply with the European directives. However, the European directives are highly regarded worldwide. The DSEAR prevents an influx of non-directive compliant equipment, and is beneficial to the UK. Tim concludes that the regulations in place to make sure that compliance doesn’t get any more complex and it seems that doing business with the EU should be unaffected by Brexit in this industry.
