Keyline, the UK’s leading specialist supplier of rail materials, civils, drainage solutions and heavy building materials, has strengthened its rail division with the appointment of a new office manager. Keyline, the UK’s leading specialist supplier of rail materials, civils, drainage solutions and heavy building materials, has strengthened its rail division with the appointment of a new office manager. Charlie Hurst will support the continued growth of the division within her new role at the new Rail and Geotechnics Office in Leeds. As Office Manager – Central Rail & Geotechnics Division, Charlie will have a remit to work alongside Keyline’s new and existing customers across the UK, understanding their requirements and providing the necessary support to ensure first class service delivery. In her new role she will also be in a position to offer support to those contractors who will be working on the upcoming High Speed Two (HS2) project. Charlie has more than ten years of experience working within the industry, previously holding roles at Forticrete and Travis Perkins. She joined Keyline in 2010 as a National Sales Support, before managing customer accounts across the Leeds, Morley and Bradford depots. Richard Wade, Head of Rail & Geotechnics, Keyline, said: “Charlie will play a vital role leading the new Rail & Geotechnics Office as Keyline’s rail division embarks on the next stage of its growth. This dedicated office in Leeds, together with our employees’ vast expertise, will ensure Keyline is in the best position possible to support those contractors who are soon to be working on the innovative HS2 project. “Charlie possesses excellent sales and customer service skills, as well as a high-level technical knowledge. This combination will ensure she can provide an excellent service to both new and existing clients.”    Source link

Coal-fired power plants could be allowed to run beyond 2025 if they make at least partial use of carbon capture and storage (CCS), the Independent has reported. In her energy reset speech in November energy secretary Amber Rudd promised to phase out all unabated coal generation by 2025. A consultation on the planned cut-off was originally meant to be launched this spring but still hasn’t materialised. An unnamed Whitehall source was quoted by the paper as saying: “If coal is partially abated, if you have installed CCS, could you carry on burning coal? These are all the points the consultation is going to try to address and set out what would be allowed and seek people’s views on it.” He continued: “The consultation will very clearly set out if you have got a coal power station basically what happens after 2025… If you are fitting it with CCS, it will set a level of sorts at which this will not be allowed.” The source said the government could still decide to halt any coal generation that does not have zero carbon emissions, adding that the discussions taking place were still “pure speculation” at this point. According to the minutes of a meeting of the coal forum in February, energy minister Andrea Leadsom “encouraged industry to engage in the consultation” by, for example, questioning “what is ‘unabated coal’?” A spokeswoman for the Department of Energy and Climate Change (Decc) said: “Unabated coal is the dirtiest, most polluting way of generating electricity.  The government is absolutely committed to phasing out power production from unabated coal by 2025 and it is nonsense to suggest otherwise.  We made this clear last year and nothing has changed.” She said the consultation on the coal closures will be published in the coming months and will seek to clarify what exactly is meant by unabated coal. According to recent figures from Decc coal generation collapsed in the first three months of 2016, supplying 50 per cent less power than in the same period last year. Source link

3 August 2016 | Herpreet Kaur Grewal Construction and FM provider Amey has appointed Hitachi Capital Vehicle Solutions to look after its fleet of more than 8,500 vehicles. The six-year deal will see Hitachi Capital Vehicle Solutions provide Amey with the funding and vehicle management for its fleet of cars, light commercial vehicles, heavy goods, ancillary equipment and specialist assets. Hitachi Capital Vehicle Solutions will use “embedded teams” to work with Amey on a daily basis “to ensure that their specialist assets achieve the highest levels of compliance, safety and availability”. The agreement was made in May 2016 and runs from July 2016 to summer 2022. Source link

The Industrial body Scottish Renewables has suggested that the Scottish government needs to be more clear about how they plan on reaching the energy targets that they have set. The energy targets that have been put in to place by the government would make a positive impact on the sustainability of a number of different sectors, however the targets themselves are thought to be quite ambitious by Scottish Renewables. The government in Scotland has already published a draft energy strategy earlier this year. However, this draft has been criticized for not being completely clear. The Government used the draft in order to state that the country is aiming to source half of all the energy that is consumed in Scotland through renewable energy by 2030. While this is great news and significant that the government is committed to making such a significant step towards using renewables. In light of the published government draft, Scottish Renewables has said that the government needs to do more, such as laying out a number of action plans that will precisely display how the government plans on making the jump to using such a high percentage of renewable energy. The industrial body has said that the should take full advantage of the more devolved plans that they have access to such as planning, public procurement, building standards, business rates, innovation and project funding. Supposedly, these devolved policies will allow the country to refresh their energy strategies in order to push towards decarbonisation across all industries in the country. Being clearer with those who the strategy will impact means that they will have a better understanding of what is going to happen and what they need to do in order to make the decarbonisation plans come to fruition. These changes in sustainability could impact the construction industry, as they will have to make alterations to heating and water facilities that are installed in new buildings as well as adapting their transportation operations and updating the facilities in already established buildings.