Contractor Henry Brothers Midlands has been appointed to build a new £15m ‘mock hospital’ facility at Nottingham Trent University to help train healthcare professionals of the future. Procured through Pagabo’s Major Works Framework, the 34,000 sq ft building at NTU’s Clifton Campus will serve as the base for the university’s
Vital Energi have won the £17m contract to deliver the primary energy infrastructure package for the Greystar and Henderson Park, Nine Elms Park plots B and D development which will be situated on the former Royal Mail centre. The 14-acre development, which lays between Battersea & Vauxhall, south of the
Tridify announced today it has been awarded an Epic MegaGrant to develop a new BIM streaming service, enabling AEC professionals to view interactive BIM models rendered with Unreal Engine streamed to any mobile device. Designed to improve collaboration at all stages of the construction process, the service will make existing
A NEW £9 million primary school built on the former RAF Locking base and surrounding land in North Somerset has welcomed its first cohort of pupils – after construction completed in time for the 2020/21 academic year, despite setbacks caused by COVID-19. The Parklands Educate Together Primary School, in Weston-super-Mare,
By Neil Driver, Director at Davis Grant Hundreds of property developments across the UK that are undertaken on contaminated land could benefit from a unique tax relief that reduces a company’s Corporation Tax bill or provides funding via tax credits. With more and more building projects being built on previously
National housebuilder Keepmoat Homes is testing ‘dog’s eye view’ showhome videos for pet-loving homebuyers looking to give their four-legged friend a remote VIP viewing. The first video, filmed at the company’s Elm Tree Park development in Yorkshire features Chester, a 10-month old cocker spaniel, who belongs to Keepmoat Homes Sales
Various industries around the globe continue to be affected by the ongoing pandemic. This is why companies are doing their best to survive or at least manage the coronavirus’ impact on their business operation. At this point, organizations need to adapt to change. One of the ways is to transform
Contractor Henry Brothers Midlands has been appointed to build a new £15m ‘mock hospital’ facility at Nottingham Trent University to help train healthcare professionals of the future. Procured through Pagabo’s Major Works Framework, the 34,000 sq ft building at NTU’s Clifton Campus will serve as the base for the university’s Institute of Health & Allied Professions, which offers a range of specialist courses such as Adult and Mental Health Nursing, Paramedic Science and Public Health. One entire floor will be dedicated to simulated healthcare environments including hospital wards, consultation and counselling rooms, and even a flat for home and emergency care scenarios. The settings will also feature lifelike patient manikins to give students the experience of working with men, women and children with a variety of injuries. Two additional floors will provide office and flexible teaching spaces, including removable seating in lecture theatres to allow for creative learning approaches such as role play. The centre will allow NTU to equip future healthcare professionals with the knowledge and skills needed for modern healthcare. Ian Taylor, managing director of Henry Brothers Midlands, said: “We are proud to have been selected to build this facility which will have such an important role to play in training future generations of healthcare professionals. “Henry Brothers Midlands has successfully partnered with Nottingham Trent University on a number of projects in recent years, helping to create first-class facilities for a range of disciplines, including a new £23m engineering building and the £9m Enterprise Innovation Centre, which is currently being built, and we are delighted to have been appointed on this latest state-of-the-art scheme.” Dr Anne Felton, head of the Institute of Health & Allied Professions, said: “Contemporary registered healthcare professionals are required to be dynamic and flexible. As well as providing compassionate care, they need to be able to think critically, make complex decisions and lead. “Fostering these skills in the next generation of nurses, paramedics and allied health professionals requires universities to use a range of teaching and learning strategies which complement and enhance the time students spend in practice during their courses. “The facilities in this cutting-edge new building will enable us to recreate a ward setting, or a persons’ home environment, so students can practice and apply the skills they are learning in a safe way and in a realistic context, as well as creating scenarios for students that may be rare in a real world situation.” Executive Dean of the School of Social Sciences at NTU, Professor Sara Owen, added: “Simulations and virtual reality are providing huge opportunities in healthcare education and we are proud of the technological advances and facilities on offer in this building. They will enable us to make these creative and innovative approaches an integral part of our education and give our students the best possible experience.” Jonathan Parker, National Framework Manager at Pagabo, said: “We’re delighted to see that NTU has chosen once again to utilise our Major Works Framework to successfully procure and appoint Henry Brothers Midlands. “The new facility is set to have a huge benefit on the next generation of healthcare professionals and continue to transform NTU’s ever-changing campuses, which is something we’re extremely proud to play our part in. “Henry Brothers are a key delivery partner of ours and operate across multiple regions on both our Major and Medium Works Frameworks, so it’s a real pleasure to be continuing to build on our excellent working relationship with them.” The scheme is being led by NTU’s capital projects group within the Estates department. As well as main contractor Henry Brothers – appointed under the Pagabo Framework – the delivery team includes external project managers, Edge, together with architects, Pick Everard, and Turner & Townsend, Atkins and Waterman Group. Work is expected to get under way on site this month (October) with completion due by January 2022. Nottingham-based Henry Brothers Midlands is part of The Henry Group, which comprises a number of manufacturing and construction sector companies, ranging from external construction through to interiors fit-out. In partnership with clients, it has a proven track record in education, defence, accommodation, commercial, industrial, transport and healthcare sectors. For more information, visit www.henrybrothers.co.uk
Vital Energi have won the £17m contract to deliver the primary energy infrastructure package for the Greystar and Henderson Park, Nine Elms Park plots B and D development which will be situated on the former Royal Mail centre. The 14-acre development, which lays between Battersea & Vauxhall, south of the River Thames, will create a total of 894 rental homes in plots B and D with the addition of high spec amenity areas and retail units at ground floor. Each block will be served via their own district heating, chilled and water services plant and the development will be future proofed to enable easy connection to a wider district heating network in the future. Rob Callaghan, Regional director for Vital Energi commented, “Not only are Greystar and Henderson Park, with their delivery partner Telford Homes, creating much-needed, high quality rental housing in London, they are doing it with sustainability at its heart. The overall Nine Elms Park development will deliver a vibrant community with a school, retail units and community facilities and at full build out will deliver almost 2,000 new homes where they are needed. “This will be a fantastic addition to the Vauxhall, Nine Elms and Battersea Regeneration Area (known as VNEB) and London in general and we look forward to beginning work on this exciting new development.”
Tridify announced today it has been awarded an Epic MegaGrant to develop a new BIM streaming service, enabling AEC professionals to view interactive BIM models rendered with Unreal Engine streamed to any mobile device. Designed to improve collaboration at all stages of the construction process, the service will make existing workflows more efficient and increase the quality of the viewing experience, when sharing large BIMs remotely. Breaking down existing barriers to sharing large BIMs, the service works with any size of model on any device. Previously, due to the size of data and restrictions of mobile devices, viewing large models remotely made collaboration difficult. Users can now benefit from uninterrupted workflows, seamlessly interacting with complex models from any location. Tridify’s new service automatically publishes any IFC file to Unreal Engine and streams it to users via a URL. As the model is streamed directly to a device, there is no need to download any additional applications. The service will be available during October via a range of different priced packages and is an addition to Tridify’s existing set of BIM publishing tools. “Being able to view any type of BIM model on any device, rendered in the industry’s highest quality game engine Unreal, is a major milestone in the streamlining of AEC workflows,” said Alexander Le Bell, Tridify CEO. “The service solves the problem of how to share complete models of large scale developments such as airports, hospitals or shopping malls with everyone, anywhere, without any technical or financial barriers. Tridify is delighted to receive the MegaGrant from Epic Games to create the new service and transform the working practices of architects, engineers and BIM managers.” “The new Tridify service opens up amazing opportunities for the AEC community to benefit from the power of Unreal Engine visualisations, as they work more remotely with increasingly complex BIMs,” commented David Weir-McCall, Business Development, Unreal Engine Enterprise, Epic Games. “Making Unreal Engine more accessible in this way will allow the AEC ecosystem to understand projects more easily and open communication between designer and client.” Users can select to combine different models, such as architecture, HVAC, plumbing or electricity, or simply choose to stream a complete BIM model. Future tools will include mark-up, annotations, measuring and cutting planes. For more information and video demo please visit: https://go.tridify.com/bim-streaming-signup
A NEW £9 million primary school built on the former RAF Locking base and surrounding land in North Somerset has welcomed its first cohort of pupils – after construction completed in time for the 2020/21 academic year, despite setbacks caused by COVID-19. The Parklands Educate Together Primary School, in Weston-super-Mare, has been designed and built to meet the needs of staff, pupils and the local community – delivering 14 modern classrooms, a multi-use games area, main hall, hard and soft informal play areas, and a habitat area. Initially, the school will provide 420 primary school places and a self-contained pre-school, with capacity to expand to 630 places when required. Property, construction and infrastructure consultancy Perfect Circle was appointed by North Somerset Council via Scape Group’s National Built Environment Consultancy Services (BECS) framework to provide cost management and quantity surveying (QS) services for the project. Victoria Brambini, managing director of Perfect Circle, said: “We are delighted to have supported with the opening of the new Parklands Educate Together Primary School, which has created 420 much-needed school places for pupils in the local community. “Throughout the project, we worked collaboratively with contractor Willmott Dixon, which was appointed via Scape’s National Construction framework, to overcome a number of challenges, namely the coronavirus pandemic. This effective collaboration across two of Scape’s frameworks ensured that a spacious, light and innovative primary school was delivered in time for the start of the new academic year.” A temporary building to house pupils from the new, nearby housing development originally opened just around the corner from the new site in September 2018. Another provisional building was added a year later to expand the school to four classrooms. The permanent site welcomed pupils to the finished building on Monday, 7 September 2020. William Phillips, regional lead for the South West at Perfect Circle, said: “During the height of coronavirus in the UK when numerous restrictions were in place, we were uncertain whether the school was going to be ready in time for the upcoming academic year. “However, as the school had been operating out of temporary buildings for the past two years, the entire team was committed to ensuring that, despite construction taking place in the middle of a pandemic, the building would be ready to welcome pupils in September. “Credit has to go to Willmott Dixon and its supply chain for their efforts adapting to the new site operating procedures under COVID-19 restrictions, as well as the council’s internal project management team for ensuring the scheme maintained momentum. “Due to the challenging circumstances, we spent more time than usual on the scheme, getting costs agreed between the client and contractor in order to keep things moving and get the project finished on time. And, despite the COVID-19 restrictions that were implemented, the school was able to open its doors to pupils this week, which was a huge success for everyone involved, and fantastic news for the school and local community.” Scape’s BECS framework offers direct access to the most extensive property, construction and infrastructure consultancy services available to the public sector. The fully OJEU-compliant procurement route brings together the strongest collaborative team with value for money, while contributing substantially to local social value. Mark Robinson, Scape Group chief executive, said: “The new Parklands Educate Together primary school will significantly enhance the lives of young children and their families across the Locking Parklands community. This state-of-the-art project demonstrates the ability of the public sector to overcome the obstacles presented by Covid-19 and its ongoing commitment to supporting the economic recovery. “The delivery team at North Somerset Council, Perfect Circle and Willmott Dixon deserve an immense amount of credit for adapting to the new Covid-19 operating procedures. We’re proud that our frameworks and expert partners have helped to provide the school with an innovative learning environment for the start of the academic year.” For more information on Perfect Circle, please visit www.perfectcircle.co.uk.
By Neil Driver, Director at Davis Grant Hundreds of property developments across the UK that are undertaken on contaminated land could benefit from a unique tax relief that reduces a company’s Corporation Tax bill or provides funding via tax credits. With more and more building projects being built on previously developed, derelict and contaminated land, there is the possibility that lots of developers could benefit from Land Remediation Relief (LRR). Under this tax relief, taxable profits are reduced, which in turn reduces a businesses Corporation Tax liability for the year. In some cases, this may mean that owner-occupiers or property investors can benefit from up to 150 per cent Corporation Tax relief from qualifying remediation expenditure, while even loss-making businesses can receive a 24 per cent tax credit. Meanwhile, developers can receive Corporation Tax relief of 50 per cent. Qualifying expenditure for LRR includes contaminated land costs, which are defined as those incurred in, “preventing, minimising, remedying or mitigating any harm or pollution of land or controlled waters, by reason of which the land is in a contaminated state, or restoring the land or controlled waters to their former state”. The relief, therefore, only relates to any remediation costs involved in improvements to contaminated land, including: the removal of asbestos from buildings breaking-out buried structures the treatment of harmful organisms and naturally occurring contaminants, such as radon and arsenic. Land is considered contaminated if there is something in, on or under the land that causes ‘relevant harm’, or if there is a serious possibility that ‘relevant harm’ could be caused in future. The relief only applies to businesses and not to individuals or partnerships. Companies that are a member of a partnership can, however, still make an election in respect of its share of the partnership’s land remediation expenditure, as long as it satisfies the necessary criteria. A company may also be excluded from the relief if it has already claimed capital allowances on the same expenditure or it is the original polluter, or is connected to the original polluter. The relief can only be used for land in the UK that is, or was, acquired by the company for its trade or property business, and at the time the company acquired the land at least part of it was in a contaminated or derelict state. The company must also have incurred revenue or capital expenditure on qualifying land remediation work in respect of the land. Claims for the scheme are done via a company’s usual Corporation Tax relief return, but there are various conditions that can affect when a company can or should claim LRR. This is a generous relief, which is fairly underutilised at the moment. However, with many more construction projects relying on contaminated and derelict land, developers and investors should assess whether they may be eligible to make a claim via this scheme. Considering the complexity of the scheme and the steps that need to be taken to determine eligibility for the relief it is highly recommended that professional advice is sought beforehand.
National housebuilder Keepmoat Homes is testing ‘dog’s eye view’ showhome videos for pet-loving homebuyers looking to give their four-legged friend a remote VIP viewing. The first video, filmed at the company’s Elm Tree Park development in Yorkshire features Chester, a 10-month old cocker spaniel, who belongs to Keepmoat Homes Sales Manager Alison Mahoney. Chester was given the chance to explore a new three-bedroom home at his leisure and the resulting ‘dog cam’ footage has been turned into a showhome walk-through video with a difference. “It was a throwaway comment by someone in the team who said ‘I wonder what homebuyers’ pets think of our new homes?’ It was one of those things that seemed funny at first but then caught the attention of colleagues, so we thought we’d road test it – or paw test it – here at Elm Tree Park. I volunteered my cocker spaniel Chester as he’s a naturally inquisitive dog and I thought he’d be good at exploring our showhomes – plus I secretly think he enjoys the limelight,” said Chester’s owner, Alison Mahoney, who works as a Sales Manager at Keepmoat Homes. Chester was fitted with a lightweight, pet-friendly video camera and harness and was left to his own devices – the resulting dog’s eye view sees the curious canine padding around one of Keepmoat’s Staveley showhomes. “Unsurprisingly he went straight to the sofa first, that’s a favourite spot at home, but it was interesting to watch him explore the house from his perspective and see what he found most appealing. It’s a lovely insight into the minds of our pets and I’m delighted to see him take this starring role. Maybe this will kick-start a career as a dog actor. Lassie, Wellard and Waffle watch out,” added Alison.
Various industries around the globe continue to be affected by the ongoing pandemic. This is why companies are doing their best to survive or at least manage the coronavirus’ impact on their business operation. At this point, organizations need to adapt to change. One of the ways is to transform the suite of goods and services they offer to their customers. By adopting technology during these difficult times, many businesses have seen a growth in online sales for their products. However, to ensure quality for the different industries they serve, industrial companies continue to utilize both traditional and modern processes. Industrial Coatings And Sealants For Various Industries For many decades, diverse industries have utilized protective coatings and sealants. Despite the changing requirements and standards, there will always be a use for these industrial products. Here are some of the numerous industries that benefit from high-quality industrial sealants and coatings: Aerospace: Protect the surfaces of aerospace vessels from wear and degradation. Architecture: Fixtures and windows get decorative protection from reflective coatings and paint. Automobile: Cars’ body panels are applied with sealant and coatings to protect against wear and exposure. Construction: Coatings and sealants protect the materials of various structures from improving their durability. Engineering: To enhance durability and performance, mechanical and electronic parts may be coated with protective material. Furniture: Sealants are used to make furniture more stable while coatings add a layer of protection to the surfaces. Industrial: Most coatings, adhesives, sealants, and elastomers are used for industrial and manufacturing operations Marine: In addition to blocking water from seeping inside the ship, industrial sealants prevent leaks and rust on the surfaces of water vessels. Printing: Coatings and sealants are used in the printing industry as well as in the paints and coatings industry Textile: Coatings are utilized to produce patterned fabrics and clothing Protective coatings and sealants fall under the category of CASE materials (coatings, adhesives, sealants, and elastomers). These materials aim to improve the appearance, durability, performance, and resistance of various products, tools, and equipment. Top 3 Uses Of Protective Coatings and Sealants Businesses and organizations that utilize protective coatings and sealants know that these materials are essential in creating top-quality, industry-standard products. These are the top 3 ways industries use coating and sealants: Enhance Performance And Durability One of the most important purposes of coatings and sealants is to improve the material’s performance. A common use for industrial protective coatings is in the manufacturing industry. Manufacturers that utilize metals overcome the disadvantage of working with the material by using protective coatings to prevent rust. It also protects against harsh conditions, corrosion, and impact. The lifespan of products, tools, and machinery pieces is also extended with industrial protective coatings and sealants. The choice of protective coating ultimately depends on the type of surface it’s being applied to. On the other hand, industrial protective sealants are used to effectively bind materials because of their gluey properties. Adhesives typically have greater strength and flexibility than sealants. So, the primary application purpose for both may differ. 2. Add Waterproof Protection In most construction-related applications, sealants’ function is to block sound, heat, or dust from passing through surfaces. Industrial protective sealants also work by preventing fluids and moisture from seeping through various surfaces’ joints or openings. Industrial coatings, on the other hand, are used to protect or enhance the substrate. Sometimes, these chemicals or substances are used as a decorative and protective coating for substrates–the underlying layer where the coating or sealant is applied. Examples of industrial protective coating are those applied to wooden decks and machine parts. Coatings not only protect the surface of various substrates, but it can also change the product’s surface properties. 3. Boost Aesthetic Appeal Aside from the functional purposes of industrial protective coatings, these materials are also used to enhance the products’ aesthetic appeal. For example, lacquers and paints are coatings that enhance the physical appearance of various substrates, like wood, paper, metals, foil, and film. Industrial sealants and coatings protect and improve the performance of materials, making the end-product more appealing, which is very important. Manufacturers should aim to produce durable but aesthetically appealing items. This is where protective coatings and sealants can help. Takeaway No matter how technology or time may change industries’ requirements or processes, protective sealants and coatings continue to be essential materials for the manufacturing or finishing of products. Since coatings and sealants come in many forms, choosing the best one will depend on the application’s purpose and the composition of the substrate.
