SOCOTEC is one of the UK’s leading providers of testing, inspection and certification services, provides comprehensive solutions in the Infrastructure, Environment & Safety, Environmental Science and Building & Real Estate sectors. Founded in 1953, the company offers a wide range of services to assist and advise clients through every step
Celebrating the handover of its first modular housing scheme in Wallasey, leading affordable housing provider, Torus, is marking the handover of its new 8-unit scheme at Oakdale Road. Expanding its use of Modern Methods of Construction (MMC), Oakdale Road signifies a further £1.5 million investment in the use of greener,
Falling material, tools, or debris are a considerable risk on construction sites. While existing systems on the market require time-consuming assembly, Doka provides a safe, high-quality catch fan system, which can be deployed and re-positioned in just a few simple steps and in significantly reduced time. Maximum flexibilityTwo particularly clever
A state-of-the-art faience-tiled dining hall has been completed at University of Cambridge’s Homerton College. The new building has a capacity of up to 336 and heating designed to reduce carbon emissions by approximately 40%. Ingleton Wood, a Cambridge-based property and construction consultancy, was appointed as Project Manager and Principal Designer
The fastest-growing security company in the UK has once again been recognised for its industry-leading standards with a gold accreditation from Constructionline, the country’s most connected and progressive provider of procurement and supply chain management services. Swindon-based SSGC was awarded with the highest honour from the coveted platform following a
A leading construction company in the South-east has secured £25million worth of building contracts.Multi-award-winning Anderson Group announced news of two new major contracts, both at housebuilding sites in Essex.The firm, based in Chelmsford, has secured the first phase of Vistry’s Coggeshall Mill, a collection two, three, four and five-bedroom homes.Anderson’s
An estate agent operates for both sellers and buyers though they are on different sides of the fence. Whatever they plan to achieve are different but end with the same aim: getting a property. The homeowner wants to sell while the buyer needs a convincing home to acquire. Although most
BDC 319 : Aug 2024
SOCOTEC is one of the UK’s leading providers of testing, inspection and certification services, provides comprehensive solutions in the Infrastructure, Environment & Safety, Environmental Science and Building & Real Estate sectors. Founded in 1953, the company offers a wide range of services to assist and advise clients through every step of a project’s life cycle, from acquisition and planning all the way through to completion and analysis. ITM Monitoring was acquired by SOCOTEC in 2018, and has subsequently rebranded to become SOCOTEC Monitoring UK. With over 30 years’ civil engineering experience, SOCOTEC Monitoring UK is the trusted contractor in construction, rail, highways, utilities, mines and ports across the UK, specialising in the design, installation and data provision for geotechnical and structural monitoring systems. High Speed 2 (HS2) is a high-speed railway line currently under construction in the United Kingdom. As the country’s second purpose-built high-speed line (the first being HS1), HS2 Phase One will connect London and Birmingham with a dedicated high-speed track, increasing capacity on the network. There was a risk that the construction of HS2 could have had an impact to the M25 motorway, when the tunnelling machines passed underneath in summer 2021. National Highways (formerly Highways England), the government-owned company charged with operating, maintaining and improving motorways and major A roads in England, wanted to ensure that the structural integrity of the motorway was not compromised during the tunnelling construction phase of HS2. About the project The M25 is one of the busiest roads in Europe, carrying over 250,000 vehicles per day. In 2019, Align JV awarded a contract to SOCOTEC to conduct monitoring of the M25 motorway and surrounding assets during construction. A main part of HS2, the Central 1 (C1) Section that Align JV is delivering, includes the boring of two separate tunnels underneath the motorway itself. A vital stage of the construction process was the monitoring of the motorway and surrounding assets to track any shifts in the settlement of both clockwise and anti-clockwise carriageways, sheet pile walls, bridges and abutments, the central reservation and two gantries. SOCOTEC conducted a 12-month baseline monitoring programme before the TBM’s started the crossing on the M25. The monitoring started hourly, with MS60 MultiStations measuring prisms, patch scanning and industry-leading reflectorless measurements due to the wave form digitiser technology. The MS60 successfully managed to conduct patch scanning and reflectorless measurements through the traffic at peak hours on the M25. The results provided by SOCOTEC while using the MS60 instilled confidence in the project that the potential settlement caused by the tunnelling was within the set parameters of the predicted movement set out by the clients’ designers. Challenges As one of the busiest roads in Europe, access to the motorway was often restricted, with monitoring teams unable to access the road unless it was closed, along with bridges and other monitoring points being obstructed by heavy traffic. Automated patch scanning was therefore suggested to reduce the amount of time required for teams to spend on site, increasing efficiency and improving safety. Due to restricted access on the motorway, the ability to install physical monitoring points also proved to be an obstacle to SOCOTEC. Communication between the different monitoring points was initially difficult due to the inability to run network cables to certain areas. Implementation of SCCS solutions To accomplish these tasks, a geodetic monitoring solution was required, with the ability to conduct monitoring without requiring prisms in all locations. These solutions needed to be installed in such a way so as to not obstruct traffic. With this in mind, SOCOTEC reached out to SCCS Survey. Leica GeoMoS Monitors were suggested, which enabled SOCOTEC to automate the monitoring project and use the power of imagery to minimise visits to site. Leica Nova MS60 MultiStations, GeoMoS, allowed the automatic triggering of alerts if the predefined movement levels were reached. The solution also included AD12 – Self Levelling Tribrach, which could be programmed by GeoMoS Monitor to auto-level the instrument prior to any measurement cycle. This was especially useful, as the instruments were at elevated positions to provide optimal angles of instance to the monitoring locations. SCCS provided three MS60s fitted with LOC8 and a singular Leica Nova TM50 in total. The four total stations were communicated through an SCCS Comms Box using Leica Comgate 20’s. To complete the physical set-up, security cages were designed specifically in-house by SOCOTEC for all four total stations. The MS60s and TM50 were mounted in secure cages on top of plinths (high enough so as to not obstruct motorway traffic), along with the automatic tribrach AD-12 for automatic levelling of the instruments. Voltmeters were installed at each instrument to ensure that power was being provided to each unit for charging. The monitoring project required not just sensors, software and power components, but also communication devices in the field. With all of these different components, installation would prove complex and challenging when trying to figure out how to set everything up and automate it to make it run 24/7. To overcome this challenge, SOCOTEC installed four SCCS Comms Boxes with Leica ComGate20s in the field and connected the four instruments to them. The configuration of all the devices was then performed remotely in one centralised view within the Leica GeoMoS monitoring project. This significantly sped up the configuration process and gave SOCOTEC an overview of all of their measurement cycles. An array of prisms was set up on top of the embankments, some of which served as control prisms outside the zone of interest (ZOI). Test patches were set up to scan over 20 metres, 40 metres and 60 metres, each with different obtuse angles of instance. Hourly scans were implemented from the start of the project, and once the TBM’s had passed, these were switched to three-hourly intervals to adhere to the post-construction monitoring phase. Each monitoring project has specific measurement and accuracy requirements. For this particular project, SOCOTEC used the powerful Leica GeoMoS software solution, which provided a highly flexible automated deformation monitoring system
Celebrating the handover of its first modular housing scheme in Wallasey, leading affordable housing provider, Torus, is marking the handover of its new 8-unit scheme at Oakdale Road. Expanding its use of Modern Methods of Construction (MMC), Oakdale Road signifies a further £1.5 million investment in the use of greener, more sustainable technologies and Torus’ commitment to become a more eco-friendly developer. All eight bungalows at Oakdale Road were built off site and are available via Affordable Rent and are built to meet net zero carbon standards, featuring PV Solar Roof Panels, an Air Source Heat Pump with an EPC rating of ‘A’ – the first of its kind built by Torus with contractor Starship. Completed in less than a year, Oakdale Road highlights the importance of utilising less traditional methods of construction to regenerate disused sites to create high quality, modern homes quickly. Embedding this technology will also benefit future residents by lowering their energy consumption and ultimately bills – something that has never been so important for many in Torus communities. Discussing the completion of Oakdale Road, Director of Development & Sales Steve Alcock, said: “As a social investor, we’re committed to ensuring all homes we build are not only affordable, but actively contribute to addressing key issues impacting our local communities, region and the country as a whole. Oakdale Road is the first Torus scheme that is completely carbon neutral but is certainly not the last. “As we progress on our journey to net zero emissions, this development will form the blueprint for how we continue to use MMC intelligently to not only fix the national housing crisis but reduce our impact on the environment to create more sustainable developments and we’re thrilled to have worked with Starship to create such an innovative scheme.” Chris Moores, Development Director at Starship, commented: “It’s been great working with the team at Torus to deliver what is a truly innovative, next generation development for their residents. We are always working to push the boundaries in creating the lowest carbon living standards possible for our customers and we are looking forward to working with Torus in the future on more game changing homes.” After visiting the development, Councillor Tony Jones, Chair of Wirral Council’s Economy, Regeneration & Housing Committee, said, “It’s fantastic to see such a ground-breaking development in Wirral, which not only provides much-needed bungalows for affordable rent, but also incorporates sustainable technologies to minimise carbon emissions and help residents keep their fuel bills as low as possible.”
Falling material, tools, or debris are a considerable risk on construction sites. While existing systems on the market require time-consuming assembly, Doka provides a safe, high-quality catch fan system, which can be deployed and re-positioned in just a few simple steps and in significantly reduced time. Maximum flexibilityTwo particularly clever mechanisms are at the heart of Doka’s development. In combination with the innovative suspension of nets, the easy-lock system enables efficient installation via a snap mechanism of the floor shoe: A safety lever swiftly secures the vertical tube of the Xsafe Catch Fan in place; previously, this had to be done by fastening couplers. With the quick-folding mechanism, the net is folded from the upper slab by simply pulling on a rope. This now no longer requires two workers working simultaneously on two levels, but only one. Doka’s new folding rope enables the net to be folded by just one user, saving manpower and crane time during re-positioning and cleaning. All-round winnerThe vertical extensions of the Xsafe Catch Fan are specifically designed to meet the customer’s needs: Compared to common round tube-in-tube designs, the square tubes no longer require strenuous hole alignment when securing with bolts. Once assembled on the ground, the Xsafe Catch Fan can easily be lifted as well as quickly re-positioned from floor to floor without adjustment to the vertical extensions. “With the development of the Xsafe Catch Fan, we identified the potential to provide more safety on construction sites. Customers benefit from efficient and simple workflows, allowing them to focus fully on the essentials of day-to-day construction site operations,” says Thomas Lattacher, Product Manager, Xsafe Catch Fan. The official sales launch of the product will start in September 2022.
A state-of-the-art faience-tiled dining hall has been completed at University of Cambridge’s Homerton College. The new building has a capacity of up to 336 and heating designed to reduce carbon emissions by approximately 40%. Ingleton Wood, a Cambridge-based property and construction consultancy, was appointed as Project Manager and Principal Designer for the two-year project. The project comprised a dining hall, buttery, kitchens and other staff amenities, and provides daily dining facilities as well as a formal venue for evening events. A balcony located in the buttery offers students an alternative setting for socialising or quiet study. The hall has been designed and detailed robustly for a minimum 100-year lifespan, applying a set of sustainability standards that exceed best practice. It is all-electric and passively ventilated, with a ground source heat pump that reduces CO2 emissions from heating and hot water by approximately 40%. Nick Bryant, Project Manager at Ingleton Wood, said: “Homerton College has been a client of ours for many years, and we were delighted to utilise our extensive experience within the campus to support this project. “In 2014 we prepared an overall College Masterplan which identified the Dining Hall’s construction as one phase of the implementation process. We have worked with the College and contractors to carry out all of the previous phases, including new post-graduate accommodation, refurbishment of the Queens Wing building, a new college bar, the provision of new guest bedrooms, an auditorium and music practice rooms.” Previously the College’s dining facilities were housed in its historical buildings, but additional capacity and modernisation were required. The new build achieves this while maintaining the site’s heritage, with the faience tiles echoing the formal motifs of its neighbouring buildings. Lord Simon Woolley, Principal of Homerton College, said: “Our new dining hall is a beautiful beacon which from the outside speaks to our ambition and values, and on the inside provides space for our students, Fellows, staff and guests to have conversations, debates, music, theatre and of course, fine dining, all under this magical roof.” Ingleton Wood is one of the largest property and construction consultancies covering Central England, East Anglia, London and the South East, with offices in Cambridge, Oxford, London, Colchester, Billericay and Norwich. Its services include architecture, building surveying, building services engineering, planning, interior design, civil and structural engineering, quantity surveying, project management and health and safety. For more information about Ingleton Wood, visit www.ingletonwood.co.uk.
The fastest-growing security company in the UK has once again been recognised for its industry-leading standards with a gold accreditation from Constructionline, the country’s most connected and progressive provider of procurement and supply chain management services. Swindon-based SSGC was awarded with the highest honour from the coveted platform following a deep dive examination into its policies and procedures. The gold status demonstrates to potential buyers on the platform that the organisation has been subjected to increased scrutiny around governance and risk management. David Stubbs, CEO of SSGC, said: “The gold status really demonstrates our commitment to carry out all facets of work to the highest standards and our dedication towards the industry and its clients. “Quality management, the best possible terms of employment for our staff and ensuring our suppliers adopt to our inclusive culture is something we take great pride in here at SSGC, so we are thrilled that our practices and procedures are being recognised on such a national scale.” To secure the accreditation, the team had to demonstrate excellence through a rigorous process of validation checks, within environmental management, quality management, equal opportunities, modern slavery act adherence and anti-bribery and corruption policies. SSGC was also able to showcase the business and its team met the requirements of an extended verified pre-qualification questionnaire including equalities and diversity, environmental management and quality management. Constructionline is a leading platform that allows buyers and suppliers to optimise performance, minimise risk and realise opportunities. Through it, buyers can expect to simplify and speed up their search, validation and purchasing decision processes considerably, improving resource and cost efficiency. For more information about SSGC, visit www.ssgc-net.com or search for SSGC on social media.
A leading construction company in the South-east has secured £25million worth of building contracts.Multi-award-winning Anderson Group announced news of two new major contracts, both at housebuilding sites in Essex.The firm, based in Chelmsford, has secured the first phase of Vistry’s Coggeshall Mill, a collection two, three, four and five-bedroom homes.Anderson’s Associate Commercial Director of Construction, Andrew Nowosad, said: “Unbelievably, the tendering process for the Coggeshall Mill contract started back in December 2021.“Anderson’s pre contract team showed great tenacity and diligence, working closely with the Vistry project delivery team, to ensure our final submission was not only robust and compliant, but also successful. “The securing of this site is so strategically important to the business, as not only does it ensure continuity of work, but it also falls in line with our time proven approach of targeting and securing multi-phase sites.”Regional Finance Director for Vistry Eastern, Peter Kemmann-Lane said: “Vistry Group is delighted to be partnering with Anderson on another high-profile location in East Anglia. It is a pleasure working with Anderson, which promotes the same philosophy in delivering high-standard and award-winning developments for our customers. We are looking forward to providing a quality development in Coggeshall, Essex.”Anderson has also secured the second phase of groundworks at Wycke Place, Maldon, after successfully delivering phase one of the three, four and five-bedroom home development.The work forms the second half of the £25million worth of new deals and will involve groundworks to 183 units over 87 weeks at the Crest Nicholson site.Mr Nowasad said: “The fantastic work and achievement by the project delivery team in delivering, not only the first phase of works but also a complex S278 works package, helped ensure we were in a position of strength to tender and go on to secure the second phase of this development. “Sales and Marketing Director at Crest Nicholson Eastern, Karen Coulson, said: “After launching a successful first phase at Wycke Place in Maldon, we are pleased to be working with Anderson again, completing the groundworks on the second phase of the development.“Wycke Place has already proven popular with many buyers, from first time buyers to families and working professionals and this next phase will help us continue to respond to local demand for high quality housing.”Mr Nowasad added: “The securing of both sites demonstrates the fantastic work being undertaken by all team members involved from estimating and programming to the buying department and those on-site where our excellent reputation for health and safety as well as quality and delivery is recognised by all our clients.”
An estate agent operates for both sellers and buyers though they are on different sides of the fence. Whatever they plan to achieve are different but end with the same aim: getting a property. The homeowner wants to sell while the buyer needs a convincing home to acquire. Although most people intend to buy or sell their home alone, there are many reasons to hire a realtor to handle the procedure. Before hiring one, you need to be aware of what realtors do and why you may want to hire one. An agent creates peace of mind as most tedious and demoralizing procedures can be avoided. These professionals have an insight into the market and can provide a favorable deal for you as a buyer or seller. They have a web of connections that places high value on homes which is a gain for you. Estate agents work tirelessly to reach every market angle for a good-priced home. In this blog, you’ll discover five reasons you need a real estate agent. 1. They Will Get You the Best Price The primary reason for you may be to sell or buy a home. Either way, you can get the best price if you involve a realtor. A realtor will ensure the home is appropriately priced in your favor. You may think you know a home’s worth, but there are still mistakes in your estimate. Highly esteemed professionals like Bermondsay estate agents have a way of going fact-based by comparing prices within the region and reviewing the property to determine a fair price. A real estate agent can save you the emotional damage attached to buying or selling a home. They have the knowledge to guide you on competitive prices in the estate market. 2. They Know the Market Real estate transactions can be complex and overwhelming. Professionals like Chinneck Shaw have a deep understanding of the market and can provide valuable insights that you may not be aware of. They can help you explore opportunities that you may have missed on your own. With their expertise, you can expect favorable financial transactions and a smooth process. Chinneck Shaw has a vast network of connections in the market, which can be beneficial for you. They can connect you with interested parties and offer resources to tackle the process. Don’t underestimate the value of working with a professional, even if you have experience in buying or selling a home. 3. They Know How to Increase the Value of Your Home People neglect the use of agents because of their fees. But these people can make you money, especially at prices that cover their fees. Since a real estate agent is familiar with the local market, they can explore the opportunity to increase the value of your home. They may have experience selling similar properties meaning the value of your home is highly estimated with local market trends. They will set the selling or buying price to your advantage by taking deals with high prices. An agent with high sales can make more sales at higher prices for you. Choose an experienced and licensed agent to avoid being defrauded. 4. They Have Experience Agents have been involved in the market for a long time creating various experiences in their skills. They have trained in the ins and outs of the estate market and possess superior sales and marketing skills. Their experience gives them a better stand in negotiation with intimate market knowledge. They can connect to buyers and sellers due to their experience. Dealing with the trend without an agent will leave you wondering about your way. But with experience, the complexities of the market are easily integrated. The level of experience determines the chances of getting a better home. They are able to place or check for property in various sites or spots, preventing time consumption and expenses. 5. Privacy & Confidentiality Privacy and confidentiality are necessary for dealing with the estate market. These are needed because the market isn’t stable and moves rapidly. Professionals are trained to remain quiet in your privacy which builds confidence between them and you. They are obliged to remain confidential about your discussion. Although they keep a record, these files are not open to third parties and are stored in confidential places.
