Fusion Building Systems has completed its works on three residential housing projects in the south of England for Barratt Developments. St Mary’s Place, Felpham, West Sussex; New Quarter, Bordon, Surrey; and Cane Hill Park, Couldson, Surrey, are the first schemes to be delivered by the offsite manufacturer since it successfully
To mark this year’s International Day of Charity, Linden Homes is celebrating the hundreds of charity events and challenges hosted up and down the country from opening food banks and hosting Macmillan Coffee mornings to volunteering at YMCA and holding a charity boxing night, raising over £100,000 since January 2018.
In the line with their current ambitious expansion plans, the UK supplier of generators, lighting and welding machinery, MHM Plant, has confirmed Glendun Plant Sales Limited as their distributor for Northern Ireland. Glendun Plant Sales is based in Dungannon, County Tyrone and is an established and well respected dealer and
Somers Town Energy is on course to provide further benefits to the London Borough of Camden following the installation of new plant equipment as the project moves into its second phase. Vital Energi and Camden Council originally began working on the £3.4m project in 2014 when we provided the retrofit
Fusion Building Systems has completed its works on three residential housing projects in the south of England for Barratt Developments. St Mary’s Place, Felpham, West Sussex; New Quarter, Bordon, Surrey; and Cane Hill Park, Couldson, Surrey, are the first schemes to be delivered by the offsite manufacturer since it successfully completed a trial project for Barratt in Angmering, Southampton in 2017. Across the three sites, working on almost 200 units, Fusion adapted existing Barratt house types as well as developing bespoke multi-storey designs, to make them suitable for use with its light gauge steel panelised system. The work was completed on each site over the past 12 months, but was the result of almost three years of intense integration and education at all levels across both companies, exploring how offsite systems could be used as a viable alternative to traditional methods of construction. “Our system was proven to work on a small number of houses for Barratt’s trial 18 months ago, so it’s exciting now for us to see how we can scale up to deliver a much larger number of units,” said Robert Clark, Fusion Head of Business Development. The light gauge steel superstructures for each development were designed, engineered and manufactured at Fusion’s factory in Northampton – with its patented, pre-insulated panels being transported to site, ready for immediate installation. The three sites were very different in their requirements however, from two, three and four-bedroom standard house types, to non-standard designs with challenging ground conditions and four-storey apartment buildings. Robert continued: “Each site put our design and engineering teams to the test with the successful delivery of each, from concept through to installation on site, reliant on effective collaboration and communication throughout the supply chain. The early phases on site once again presented a learning curve for each company, but as each development progressed, all parties worked well together and were ultimately convinced offsite was the future for volume housebuilding.” Oliver Novakovic, Technical and Innovation Director, Barratt Developments, added: “Fusion has now successfully delivered full scale pilots on three sites with our Southampton and Southern Counties divisions. We have seen a real improvement in speed as predicted and are now continuing to work closely with the Fusion team to roll this technology out further. We believe the work we have done over the last two years on things like standard details and the construction approach really supports the application of the Fusion system into our private housing market.” The new homes at each development are now being marketed to private and social housing customers. For further information visit www.fusionbuild.com or www.barratthomes.co.uk
To mark this year’s International Day of Charity, Linden Homes is celebrating the hundreds of charity events and challenges hosted up and down the country from opening food banks and hosting Macmillan Coffee mornings to volunteering at YMCA and holding a charity boxing night, raising over £100,000 since January 2018. In addition, this month will see the top-10 housebuilder, along with Galliford Try Partnerships participate in the mammoth Housebuilders Mountain Marathon Challenge. The team will cover a gruelling 26 miles across the rugged terrain of Snowdonia in North Wales, with the aim of raising £25,000. The money raised by the housebuilders will go to the Youth Adventure Trust. The Trust helps vulnerable children, aged 11 to 14 years old whilst giving them the chance to take part in a number of residential adventure camps. The programme enables the participants to experience success and learn to go beyond their own expectations whilst growing in confidence. Linden Homes’ charitable side does not stop with this challenge with Linden Homes West Yorkshire recently hosting a charity dinner for Macmillan Cancer Support. The evening included a three-course dinner, charity auction, raffle and live music from award-winning band ‘Undercovered’. The dinner raised an impressive £12,500, taking Linden Homes West Yorkshire’s total fundraising to date to £14,420, with the target of raising £20,000 by the end of the year. At the other end of the country, Linden Homes South West hosted a charity golf day in May, which raised a staggering £24,000 for Torbay Hospital’s Special Care Baby Unit and the Royal Devon and Exeter Hospital’s Neonatal Unit. Linden Homes South West has since hosted another charity golf day, raising £30,000. The funds were split with half being donated to FORCE Cancer with remaining funds used to install defibrillators in the communities that Linden Homes have built in the region. Tom Nicholson, Divisional Chairman of Linden Homes commented: “As well as taking part in wider charitable events such as the Housebuilder Mountain Marathon Challenge, it’s also fantastic to see that our business units across the country are showing such generosity to support so many worthwhile causes to give something back to the areas that we build our homes in. “In addition to direct fundraising, Linden Homes’ teams around the country have supported their communities by sponsoring sports teams, local events and schools. Groups who can often get overlooked have found the help they’ve needed and it’s rewarding to see the range of organisations we’ve assisted.” International Day of Charity is observed annually on 5 September and is an awareness day proposed by the United Nations (UN inviting organisations and individuals to commemorate the day by encouraging charitable acts in their communities. To read the full story and to donate in support of Linden Homes’ Mountain Marathon Challenge, please visit: uk.virginmoneygiving.com/Team/HBMM18LindenHomes
In the line with their current ambitious expansion plans, the UK supplier of generators, lighting and welding machinery, MHM Plant, has confirmed Glendun Plant Sales Limited as their distributor for Northern Ireland. Glendun Plant Sales is based in Dungannon, County Tyrone and is an established and well respected dealer and distributor for a wide range of plant, tools and equipment. Commenting on this latest distributorship for Glendun Plant, Dermot Cunnie, sales director said, “We had seen the success that Mat was having in Great Britain through various trade publications and online media. Our interest in the product developed after a very positive meeting at our offices. The quality is a main factor – we are already familiar with the lighting tower products and the MHM generators are a very good fit to our profile”. Following these successful discussions, Glendun Plant Sales placed an initial order for a stock of MHM petrol and diesel generators from 3.0kVA to 25kVA. They also received an immediate order for a 3,000 litre fuel cube from one of their regular customers and an order for 6.0kVA generators from Balloo Hire Centres. Glendun have committed to keep in stock a wide range of fast moving items, which will build up as customer demands become apparent in their area. Dermot added, “Mat and the team have been a great help in getting us up and running. They know the product, market and the business, so it’s onwards and upwards!” MHM managing director, Mat Llewellyn added, “We are naturally delighted to have Dermot and the Glendun Plant team marketing our range of equipment in Northern Ireland. Their success in promoting a complimentary range of machinery drew us to the conclusion that Glendun was the company we should be working with to increase our market share.” MHM Plant was incorporated in February 2010 and they currently operate from two locations. MHM West is located in South Wales and MHM North in Coatbridge, Scotland. A London depot, MHM South, is currently under development. They have recently invested over £5m (€5.6m) in their exclusive rehire fleet dedicated to the UK and Irish rental markets.
Somers Town Energy is on course to provide further benefits to the London Borough of Camden following the installation of new plant equipment as the project moves into its second phase. Vital Energi and Camden Council originally began working on the £3.4m project in 2014 when we provided the retrofit energy centre into an under-used car park and connected four housing estates via a 581m district heating network. This has been providing 339 homes with low carbon heat and hot water from the three 1.3MWth boilers installed. The project is now at its exciting second stage which sees the installation of a 1MW CHP engine, four 9,000L and three 11,000L thermal stores which will reduce carbon emissions even further. The units were delivered over a two day period which saw us complete all traffic and pedestrian access management to ensure safety, with the deliveries completed between working hours to minimise disruption as much as possible. Once this phase of the project is complete, Somers Town Energy will provide savings of over 1,000 tonnes per annum and will deliver financial benefits to Camden Council through the sale of electricity generated by the CHP. As the heat network begun operation in 2015, there was limited historical operational data to determine detailed demand patterns, which led the Council to request a period of study in order to understand the network’s performance. This led Vital Energi to provide a dual phased solution, allowing for a period of heat study to generate operational data before deciding upon the best matched CHP engine size. An implementation plan like this allowed us to overcome challenges of the unknown usage levels and provide an accurate solution that best suited the client. Vital Energi’s Project Manager, Derek Culver, commented, “It is always an exciting time when a project reaches its next phase, and having been operating Somers Town Energy for almost four years we are incredibly pleased to be involved with this latest development. The additional CHP engine and thermal stores will maximise the financial and carbon savings for the borough with work connecting the next estate set to begin at the end of the month.” Councillor Adam Harrison, Cabinet Member for Improving Camden’s Environment added, “Somers Town Energy is Camden’s flagship low emissions project. It shows how a forward-looking council can deliver projects that are both good for the environment and save money. I look forward to seeing the project develop further over the coming months.” The next phase of Somers Town Energy will see extensions to a new community centre, the redesigned Edith Neville School and a further housing block. To support Camden’s Community Investment Programme visit www.camden.gov.uk/cip. If you’d like to know more about Vital Energi and the work they do, please visit www.vitalenergi.co.uk
