Eighteen out of 21 water companies will have social tariffs in place from 1 April, with South Staffordshire Water, Cambridge Water and Dee Valley Water all announcing new schemes this month. Portsmouth Water said it will also have a new tariff in place to help those on
Category: Construction Industry Today | Subscribe to Construction Industry Today Feed Published Mon, Apr 4th 2016 Oxfordshire homebuilder David Wilson Homes has thrown its support behind the government’s campaign to boost the number of young people in apprenticeships as part of National Apprenticeship Week. Posted via Industry Today. Follow
Sorry, the page you were looking for cannot be found. You can visit our home page or view the website sitemap to try and locate the content you were looking for. If you are still having problems then please feel free to contact us. Back to the top Source link
Oak Tree Hotels, represented by Savills, has sold Stanton Manor Hotel in Stanton Saint Quintin near Chippenham to an overseas investor from a guide price of £1.7 million. The 23-bedroom country house hotel dates back to 1840 and features a lounge bar, restaurant, function room and conference facilities. Set within
Bitcoin is the native currency of the bitcoin blockchain, a technology which records transactions on a decentralized, distributed and public digital ledger. A copy of the ledger is provided to each member of the network and is updated every 10 minutes as blocks of transactions are added to the existing chain.
McAvoy has delivered its latest project – a new school building at West Hill School for Surrey County Council, built using the BIM technology and manufactured offsite to reduce disruption. The scheme links the traditionally-constructed main building and an existing modular classroom block on a highly constrained, fully operational school
The eighth edition of Hub South West’s Building for Growth programme is now underway and is inviting all companies that are looking to grow in a sustainable manner by building the skills and internal capacity to take on increasing volumes of business and, as a result could win new work
Eighteen out of 21 water companies will have social tariffs in place from 1 April, with South Staffordshire Water, Cambridge Water and Dee Valley Water all announcing new schemes this month. Portsmouth Water said it will also have a new tariff in place to help those on low incomes from July. Wessex Water and Bristol Water already operate social tariffs but are both adding new schemes to help those who receive Pension Credit. The Consumer Council for Water (CCWater) welcomed the new tariffs, which it said will “significantly reduce water bills for almost half a million customers who are struggling to pay”. It did, however, warn that many households are missing out on the help available to them due to a lack of awareness or reluctance to ask for help. CCWater senior policy manager Andy White said: “We know from our research that one in eight households feel their water bill is not affordable. Help is waiting for thousands of customers, but many simply don’t expect to be able to get assistance from their water company.” The other water companies with social tariffs are Affinity Water, Anglian Water, Welsh Water, Essex and Suffolk Water, Northumbrian Water, Severn Trent Water, South East Water, South West Water, Southern Water, Sutton and East Surrey Water, Thames Water and Yorkshire Water. In February, water regulator Ofwat released a report insisting water companies are not doing enough to help vulnerable customers, and must understand the individual circumstances of customers to offer more tailored support, as it was announced that the average water and sewerage bill will rise by £2 to £389 in financial year 2016/17. It said although there has been a “big increase” in support for vulnerable customers, the sector still has a “long way to go” to meet customers’ needs. Ofwat chief executive Cathryn Ross said at the time: “We know that there are many pressures on household budgets and so we challenged companies to provide much more support to customers who are struggling to make ends meet. “Under those agreements around one million more people will be eligible to receive help. Some are making good progress in targeting support, while others need to get better at identifying those at risk and helping them. We will keep a close eye on how the sector progresses.” Read Utility Week’s analysis on customer vulnerablity here Source link
Category: Construction Industry Today | Subscribe to Construction Industry Today Feed Published Mon, Apr 4th 2016 Oxfordshire homebuilder David Wilson Homes has thrown its support behind the government’s campaign to boost the number of young people in apprenticeships as part of National Apprenticeship Week. Posted via Industry Today. Follow us on Twitter @IndustryToday Barratt Developments which includes David Wilson Homes and Barratt Homes has opened up positions for new apprentices in the region, including bricklayers and carpenters/joiners at its developments across Oxfordshire. Paul Crispin, managing director of David Wilson Homes, said its apprenticeships provide the perfect foundations for a career in the construction industry and it will be focussing on ensuring apprentices successfully complete their programmes and enter the industry as qualified tradespeople or trainee site managers in order to address the current skills shortage. “Nationally we have recruited 780 graduates, undergraduates, apprentices and trainees in the past three years of which 480 were apprentices,’’ he said. “By September 2016, we will have around 450 apprentices and trainees currently on a programme, which represents 7.5% of the direct workforce. “We want to invite anybody with an interest in construction to consider applying for one of our apprenticeships and help us build our award-winning new homes.“ Barratt Developments’ apprenticeship programme sees learners work on an assigned development in the region for part of their working week, as well as taking part in classroom-based learning at a local college. Source link
Sorry, the page you were looking for cannot be found. You can visit our home page or view the website sitemap to try and locate the content you were looking for. If you are still having problems then please feel free to contact us. Back to the top Source link
Oak Tree Hotels, represented by Savills, has sold Stanton Manor Hotel in Stanton Saint Quintin near Chippenham to an overseas investor from a guide price of £1.7 million. The 23-bedroom country house hotel dates back to 1840 and features a lounge bar, restaurant, function room and conference facilities. Set within 4.3 acres (1.7 hectares) of gardens and grounds, Stanton Manor also holds a wedding license and accommodates up to 200 guests in an outdoor marquee. Smaller ceremonies can take place in the 12th Century Church of St Giles which is situated near the property’s entrance. Martin Rogers, head of UK hotel transactions at Savills, comments: “This sale emphasises the high level of demand for country house hotels and wedding venues, with Stanton Manor generating significant interest from both domestic and overseas buyers. The regional hotel market in the UK is very strong and appetite for quality assets like this one is as high today as it has been for 10 years.” The purchaser was unrepresented. Source link
Bitcoin is the native currency of the bitcoin blockchain, a technology which records transactions on a decentralized, distributed and public digital ledger. A copy of the ledger is provided to each member of the network and is updated every 10 minutes as blocks of transactions are added to the existing chain. The decentralized nature of the blockchain technology means that that there is no central point at which the data is being held and no central point of failure. In other words, a record on the blockchain cannot be altered without the alteration of all other participants on the network. Unlike a centralised network where an attacker has to gain access to one system, for an attacker to alter the records on a blockchain, they would need to attack all computers on that network at the same time. Blockchain transactions are encrypted with a set of complex mathematical equations where the computers on the network compete against each other to be the first to solve the equation and add further transactions to the ledger. This is essentially a game of computational brute force where the computers randomly guess the answer to the equation by submitting as many answers as possible per second until one of the computers gets the right answer and is rewarded with the blockchain’s currency, in this case bitcoin. In this frenzied guessing game, more computational power means more guesses per second which in turn increases the probability of a correct answer before any rival computer. As more computing power is added to the network as rivals compete with one another to guess the correct answer, the system increases the difficulty of the equation to make sure that the average time in solving the equation remains as close as possible to 10 minutes. As more computational power is added to the network as it matures, this makes it more and more difficult and expensive for that network to be compromised by attackers. See also: Understanding the digital opportunities in construction Komatsu makes 1,000 drone order from DJI Singapore, London, New York top Global Smart City Performance Index So what are the applications and benefits to construction? The decentralised nature of the network makes blockchain technology highly resistant to censorship or manipulation so could provide valuable stability on projects of an international nature where dealing in jurisdictions with a degree of political risk or volatility. Blockchain can also be implemented to increase transparency within the supply chain by tracking the movement of materials, their quantity, ownership, origin and so forth without manipulation of the records. If a dispute arises within the supply chain as to an items origin or ownership, a blockchain system could trace the materials from their point of origin to current ownership making it easier to resolve the dispute. Smart contracts are interesting applications that are being deployed as an additional layer on top of blockchain technology. A smart contract is a contract that self-executes a function when certain criteria are fulfilled and in this case, a record of that transaction is then encrypted on to the blockchain. A classic example of a smart contract would be a vending machine that deploys a soft drink upon receipt of payment. Such smart contracts could be expanded upon exponentially within construction contracts to address a number of commercial use cases such as; The automation or semi-automation of applications for payment, payment notices and payless notices and the automatic payment to the supply chain based on certified monies due (think vending machine contract 2.0) Escrow accounts and bond payments that are paid upon contractual conditions being satisfied The issuing of variations and the updating of works programs based on agreed variations or compensation events Automated assignment or novation of construction documents such as professional appointments or warranties. Automated withdrawal of certain privileges such the revocation of a copyright license for the non-payment of fees or the removal of security permissions for site access in the event of termination The submission of claims for relevant events or specified perils based on third party information such as shipping manifests, weather analysis or instructions issued by the contract administrator. What does the future hold? So what are the chances that we will see blockchain technology implemented within construction contracts in the future? Well the question is more likely to be one of “when” and not “if” as other industries start to explore the commercial use cases. Insurance companies are already starting to utilize the technology with flight delay insurance products that use a public blockchain to store and automatically process payouts where a flight is delayed for 2 hours or more based on public flight manifests. HM Land Registry is also exploring blockchain technology to research and test digital registers in a project it is calling “Digital Street”. The law society has published a paper called Capturing Technological Innovation in Legal Services and commented that bitcoin/ blockchain has the potential for “radical disruption and a reinvention of established legal processes”. Furthermore, JCT Chairman Richard Saxon has considered the question is there a blockchain in our future within his regular blog and it will be interesting to see how JCT envisage blockchain technology working with their current suite of documents. Whilst the future of blockchain technology certainly looks promising, it will not be without some bumps in the road. Despite the technology having been around since 2009, it is only within the last few years that it has gathered significant traction with early adopters and is still some considerable distance from reaching a critical mass. The legal framework for blockchain technology is virtually non-existent within the UK as a search of the UK legislation database reveals there are 0 search entries for any laws containing the words “blockchain” or “bitcoin”. On 22 February 2018 the Treasury Committee launched a new inquiry into digital currencies and distributed ledger technology. The inquiry will look at the role of digital currencies and the impact of distributed ledged technology in the UK and will look specifically at whether the government is striking the right balance between regulating the
McAvoy has delivered its latest project – a new school building at West Hill School for Surrey County Council, built using the BIM technology and manufactured offsite to reduce disruption. The scheme links the traditionally-constructed main building and an existing modular classroom block on a highly constrained, fully operational school site. It was ready for occupation on time and after less than eight months on site. The new building expands the teaching space for children with learning disabilities and it will accommodate West Hill School’s conversion from secondary education provision to a 2FE primary school. Throughout McAvoy’s construction of the new facilities, both of the existing school buildings remained in use. The offsite solution avoided any disruption to teaching and the children despite the site constraints. 28 steel-framed modules were installed in just four days and McAvoy restricted working times to maintain access and accommodate the children’s arrival at and departure from school. “We had a very positive experience working with McAvoy on this scheme. Their site management was excellent and they communicated brilliantly with the school which was so important in enabling the teachers to prepare the children. This is vital when carrying out construction works at an SEN school. The finished building is great and was designed according to the special needs nature of the school. Classrooms are light, airy and welcoming,” said Giorgia diSarno, project manager at Surrey County Council. McAvoy has now completed over 40 education building projects for Surrey County Council, ranging from single classroom buildings to a £5 million nursery, infant and junior school extension at Danetree Primary School near Epsom. By using the BIM technology, the school was able to see each room and experience the space. It allowed teaching staff to assess how the training centre could work located as a second storey to the new classroom block rather than as a freestanding building which was originally envisaged. In recognition of its industry-leading application of BIM technology for the West Hill School project, McAvoy won the RICS BIM4SME Award for Best Virtual Reality BIM.
The eighth edition of Hub South West’s Building for Growth programme is now underway and is inviting all companies that are looking to grow in a sustainable manner by building the skills and internal capacity to take on increasing volumes of business and, as a result could win new work from participating Tier 1 contractors including Morisons, Graham, Morgan Sindall, Ashleigh and Keir. The programme was designed for businesses in construction and other related sectors based in Lanarkshire, Ayrshire and Dumfries and Galloway. It started on the 21st of March and will run through until early June, with 8 half-day sessions (10am – 2pm) over a period of 12 weeks. Throughout the spring 2018 session workshops will focus on topics such as smart tendering, innermetrix profiling, strategic growth and exit options, marketing planning, supplier development programmes, corporate social responsibility and pitching for business. “There are a lot of good businesses out there, but some have areas where they need to build capacity if they want to rise to the next level,” said Gordon Hunter, hub South West’s Supply Chain Manager who manages the Building for Growth programme. “For example, many are relying too heavily on the skills of one key person, some of the IT practices are not very efficient or robust, and marketing communications can vary from the sublime to the almost non-existent. A golden rule of the programme is ‘no competitors’, leaving participants free to discuss any business issues, challenges and opportunities in a safe and supportive environment with a like-minded group of business people,” continued Gordon. Gary Thorn, founder and MD of Cumbernauld-based Cube Glass, won the Best final Presentation Award at the end of the seventh edition of Building for Growth in November: “At first I thought it would be impossible for me to take eight half-days away from the business to attend but, in fact, taking time away from my day to day concerns gave me the opportunity to sit back and look at our long term development and to improve the chances of Cube Glass winning work from some of the Tier One contractors.”
