A distillery in Oldbury has been fined after an employee was engulfed in flames in a fire that destroyed the warehouse and its contents. Wolverhampton Crown Court heard how ethyl acetate (highly flammable liquid) was being transferred from a bulk storage tank into an intermediate bulk container when an employee
Having averaged £4bn a month for the first quarter of 2016, new construction contract awards dipped to £3.4bn in April. Data gathered by the Builders’ Conference for its BCLive league table shows that only five contractors managed to book more than £100m of new work last month. Builders’ Conference chief
Almost three quarters of pensioners in the UK who have an investment property said they would struggle to make ends meet if they didn’t have the income from their buy to let, new research shows. Overall 72% would struggle and 81% of those aged over 65 said that their properties
Energy supplier SSE says that while the UK is leaving the EU it needs to remain within the European internal energy market. SSE said: “The result of the EU referendum presents no immediate risk to how SSE serves its customers or to the investment that it continues to make in
South Ayrshire Council has given detailed planning permissions for key elements of a neighbourhood development at Corton. Corton represents the first phase of delivery of the overall South East Ayr Development Masterplan, ultimately delivering 2,700 new homes over 30 years in three phases – Corton, Alton and Cockhill – on
A ground-breaking Passivhaus project is insulated with Recticel. PIR insulation from Recticel has been specified for a ground-breaking Passivhaus project for its cost effectiveness and performance characteristics. Recticel’s premium Eurothane GP insulation was specified for the floors of Lime Tree Lodge in Swaffham, Norfolk, by the town’s Parsons + Whittley Architects
A distillery in Oldbury has been fined after an employee was engulfed in flames in a fire that destroyed the warehouse and its contents. Wolverhampton Crown Court heard how ethyl acetate (highly flammable liquid) was being transferred from a bulk storage tank into an intermediate bulk container when an employee was engulfed in flames. The 21-year-old sustained twenty percent burns to his head, neck and hands. The fire, at the Alcohol Limited distillery on Crosswell road in Oldbury, destroyed the warehouse and caused damage to nearby cars and houses. West Mercia Fire and Rescue Service were called to bring the fire under control. An investigation by the Health and Safety Executive (HSE) into the incident which occurred on 26 November 2012 found that the most likely source of ignition was a discharge of static electricity generated by the transfer of the liquid. There was poor maintenance of pipework and associated valves. There was a failure to competently inspect the equipment or monitor the systems of work. Alcohols Limited, of Charringtons House, The Causeway, Bishop’s Stortford, Hertfordshire, pleaded guilty to breaching Sections 2(1) and 3(1) of the Health and Safety at Work etc. Act 1974, and was fined £270,000 and ordered to pay costs of £25,009. After the hearing HSE inspector Kieron Jones said: “Companies that fail to ensure the integrity of their safety critical equipment place their employees, members of the public, emergency services and their entire livelihood at risk of serious harm. “Poor management of highly flammable liquids can have catastrophic results both for individuals and businesses.” Notes to Editors: The Health and Safety Executive (HSE) is Britain’s national regulator for workplace health and safety. It aims to reduce work-related death, injury and ill health. It does so through research, information and advice, promoting training; new or revised regulations and codes of practice, and working with local authority partners by inspection, investigation and enforcement. www.hse.gov.uk More about the legislation referred to in this case can be found at: www.legislation.gov.uk/ and guidance at HSE news releases are available at http://press.hse.gov.uk Journalists should approach HSE press office with any queries on regional press releases. Source link
Having averaged £4bn a month for the first quarter of 2016, new construction contract awards dipped to £3.4bn in April. Data gathered by the Builders’ Conference for its BCLive league table shows that only five contractors managed to book more than £100m of new work last month. Builders’ Conference chief executive Neil Edwards was less worried about the fall in contract awards than the fall in new tenders. “A monthly BCLive league table does not a trend make,” he said. “And while a 20% fall from an established norm is nothing to celebrate, it is merely a snapshot and – in itself – no cause for panic. What is more worrying, however, is the alarming slump in new tenders. Throughout 2015, the industry was averaging between 750 and 1,000 new tenders each month. In 2016, that total has fallen to around 650. Worse still is the value of those tenders which have fallen from around £4bn per month to around £2.5bn per month.” Top of the pile and winning the league for April was Skanska, thanks to a £300m new build contract for the Malaysia Square development at Battersea Power Station. Second was BAM with a haul of 10 contracts totalling nearly £250m, while Kier was third with 19 contracts totalling £200m. Kier had by far the highest quantity of contract awards during the month. Brookfield Multiplex and Sisk Group were the only other two contractors to sign more than £100m of new business during the month. Brookfield Multiplex took fourth place thanks primarily to a £180m contract for the construction of the Marble Arch Tower that comprises residential and retail space, offices and cinema. Other contracts of note this past month is the £93 million order for Berkeley Homes for the construction of South Quay Plaza at Marsh Wall in London Docklands. Balfour Beatty, meanwhile, snagged a £82.5 million order for refurbishment and repair works at RAF Marham in Kings Lynn. Morgan Sindall, usually a high flyer in the BCLive league, slipped to 25th in the table with just seven new contract awards worth a combined £35m. BCLive league table April 2016 Further Images This article was published on 4 May 2016 (last updated on 4 May 2016). Source link
Almost three quarters of pensioners in the UK who have an investment property said they would struggle to make ends meet if they didn’t have the income from their buy to let, new research shows. Overall 72% would struggle and 81% of those aged over 65 said that their properties provide an important, even vital, boost to their retirement income, according to a poll carried out by Responsible Equity Release. The poll also found that 92% are worried about the changes to mortgage interest tax relief and the impact on the profit they make from their investment property. The buy to let tax changes coming into force have left many pensioner landlords considering whether it’s worth holding onto their property and 41% said although their buy to let property was a valuable income generator, they are now thinking seriously about selling it. ‘For many pensioners, having a buy to let property has been a life saver in this low interest environment. While their savings have languished, earning very little interest, and pension income has been hit hard by falling share prices, property income has remained strong,’ said Steve Wilkie, managing director at Responsible Equity Release. ‘Without the income boost from their buy to let, many would really be struggling to make ends meet. But the Chancellor has yet again ignored UK’s retirees when he announced changes to the way buy to let would be taxed,’ he pointed out. ‘George Osborne was so focused on taxing the rich, he forgot that a new tax on buy to let won’t just hit the wealthy, it will also hit those honest, hardworking people, who may have a single buy to let property and were just hoping it would earn them a little extra income in retirement,’ he added. BOOKMARK THIS PAGE (What is this?) Source link
Energy supplier SSE says that while the UK is leaving the EU it needs to remain within the European internal energy market. SSE said: “The result of the EU referendum presents no immediate risk to how SSE serves its customers or to the investment that it continues to make in order to fulfil its core purpose. The level of risk may, however, increase if the vote to leave leads to a prolonged period of uncertainty about the legislative or regulatory framework that SSE operates within. “It is not yet clear how this matter will now progress, but SSE believes that the UK government should be mindful of the importance that the harmonisation of the GB energy market with the countries in Europe can have on efforts to deliver clean, secure and affordable energy. “The UK government acknowledged, in a document published by the secretary of state for foreign and commonwealth affairs in February 2016, that, in the event of a vote to leave, an agreement on the continued involvement of the UK in the internal energy market (IEM) would need to be resolved in the context of managing the transition, fixing the terms of exit and fixing a future arrangement. SSE agrees with the UK government that collaboration with other European countries on energy matters is important for UK consumers. It therefore hopes that the UK government and the European institutions will provide clarity on future plans for the UK’s involvement in the IEM.” This article was published on 24 Jun 2016 (last updated on 24 Jun 2016). Source link
South Ayrshire Council has given detailed planning permissions for key elements of a neighbourhood development at Corton. Corton represents the first phase of delivery of the overall South East Ayr Development Masterplan, ultimately delivering 2,700 new homes over 30 years in three phases – Corton, Alton and Cockhill – on a 450 acre site. The Corton phase of the South East Ayr Masterplan comprises 750 houses, a new primary school, hotel, a neighbourhood centre, shops, pub/restaurant, business units and community and leisure facilities It is envisaged that the Corton development will deliver total new investment in South Ayrshire of approximately £184m. Real estate investment company LXB has secured detailed permissions for a Sainsbury’s supermarket, with associated car park and petrol filling station. Consents have also been granted for the construction of a new equestrian/pedestrian/cycle bridge over the A77, linking into a footpath network. The start of the 155-acre Corton phase and construction of the 9,400 m2 supermarket unlocks development to the remainder of the development masterplan by funding the construction of infrastructure required to open up and service the site. In addition to this,the Corton development provides land and up-front funding for a new primary school to serve the development area. In addition to the infrastructure works to create a new roundabout on the A77 to access the site and the pedestrian/equestrian/cycle overbridge, works will be carried out to upgrade 4 roundabouts on the A77 and a significant contribution will be made to Transport Scotland for future upgrades to the nearby trunk road network. This article was published on 31 May 2016 (last updated on 31 May 2016). Source link
A ground-breaking Passivhaus project is insulated with Recticel. PIR insulation from Recticel has been specified for a ground-breaking Passivhaus project for its cost effectiveness and performance characteristics. Recticel’s premium Eurothane GP insulation was specified for the floors of Lime Tree Lodge in Swaffham, Norfolk, by the town’s Parsons + Whittley Architects and was installed by award-winning Norfolk contractors Grocott & Murfit on their first Passivhaus project. The two-bedroomed bungalow is curved on plan to accommodate the dominant lime tree it is named after. The Recticel Eurothane GP insulation has been used throughout under an oak engineered timber floor or porcelain tiles and 22cm chipboard deck with vapour control layer. The £250,000 home was constructed in eight months of traditional cavity wall on a mini-piled raft with mono-pitch zinc roof in the garden of a private client who was downsizing. Faced with both brick and timber it has an external U-value of 0.096 W/m2K for the timber-faced walls and 0.098 W/m2K for the brick-faced ones. Eurothane GP is lightweight and easy to cut, handle and install. Available in a variety of thicknesses, 40m2 of two layers of 150mm were used at Lime Tree Lodge. Architect Chris Parsons said the Eurothane GP was specified because it was “cost effective insulation.”He added: “Passivhaus requires high levels of insulation and the avoidance of thermal bridging which the Recticel product helped to achieve.” Grocott & Murfit director Jody Murfit said: “The project generally was quite challenging due to the curve but the Recticel insulation was easy to install. We just cut it to size, doubled it up and taped it.”Lime Tree Lodge had to be built to certified Passivhaus standards but was inhibited by a tight site that was further constrained by the protected lime tree. This impacted on the layout of the site as the presence of a deciduous tree can enhance Passivhaus design by providing shading in summer to avoid overheating while allowing winter sun to penetrate and provide passive solar gain. Having established the spread and root protection zones of the tree, the bungalow is designed as an annulus segment centred on the tree, spaced outwards to avoid the root protection area. The circular nature is then emphasised by three concentric segmental sections of outer brickwork, each shielding the main dwelling, associated smaller rooms and finally the rear wing and covered areas. These latter two are roofed by a GRP flat roof to reduce the mass of the dwelling. The main dwelling is roofed by the mono-pitch zinc roof falling towards the tree. This shape presents a south-facing gable which was fully glazed both for the passive solar gain as well as the view. Lime Tree Lodge was shortlisted for the Passivhaus Trust Awards 2016. See http://www.passivhaustrust.org.uk/passivhaus_awards/uk-passivhaus-awards/ ENDS Source link
