Leading construction and fit out company, Gilbert-Ash, has handed over another ground-breaking project which has been part-inspired by a murmuration of starlings over Brighton’s iconic pier at University of Brighton Business School. Construction comprised concrete piled foundations, an insitu fair faced concrete frame including soffit walls and columns, a polished concrete living stair with Spanish steps and bespoke ceramic veil cladding. The building also incorporated exposed services and baffled ceilings, an extensive CAT B fit out with bespoke joinery, wall and ceiling panelling, as well as complex service installation including combined smoke extraction and natural ventilation. The new six-storey Business School at University of Brighton provides event space, creative breakout within a triple-storey atrium, workplace and teaching spaces, meeting rooms, offices and consultation rooms, a café, kitchenettes and plant space. Extensive public realm works are also included to provide an enhanced external experience. The works form the centrepiece of a major redevelopment project taking place across the University. One of the most striking features of the new Business School is the bespoke terracotta tiled ceramic veil façade with six different tile types and three different degrees of gloss finish. A first of its kind in façade design, it takes its inspiration from starling murmurations seen over Brighton pier on winter evenings. Gilbert-Ash Contracts Manager, Chris Fletcher, described the new Business School as one of the most impressive buildings he has ever worked on. “It really is an outstanding building. With large rooms and lots of open spaces it is an enhanced space going above and beyond being fit for purpose.” “This was a highly complex project, full of challenging details, finishes and build techniques, none of which were straightforward, but there was little in 2020 that went exactly to plan as the pandemic struck. Despite the many challenges, through working collaboratively with the Client team, Gilbert-Ash handed over another first-class project on budget and on time. We would highlight that without a very supportive and collaborative Client team the success of this project would have been much more challenging.” Chris also paid tribute to the Gilbert-Ash team who came together ‘as one’ to face down the challenges of the pandemic. “The teamwork was amazing, both from the people on the site, and those back at headquarters, who were working tirelessly to make sure we had the materials we needed as the global shortage took hold. I was proud to see how everyone at Gilbert-Ash and our Supply Chain Partners rolled their sleeves up with the goal of overcoming any issues to deliver a first-class project for our Client.” The new Business School will now help the University remain competitive on both the national and international stage. Gilbert-Ash attributes its continued success to its ‘As One’ approach and its unique working culture and family environment as an employee-owned company. It continues to complete a broad portfolio of successful construction projects across sectors including arts and culture, workplace, hotels and leisure, education, science and technology, retail, residential and student accommodation.

Artists across the region are being given a boost thanks to a new digital event space that will showcase their talent to the city – Trinity Leeds will transform the former Topshop storefront on Briggate into ‘Trinity Stage’, complete with an impressive 6m wide digital screen. With the arts having been hit particularly hard over the past 16 months, Trinity Leeds is doing its bit to shine a spotlight on the region’s artists and performers, where they will be given the chance to showcase videos of their work to a walk-by audience of around 30,000 people per day. It is hoped that the eye-catching Trinity Stage screen will publicise the work of hundreds of artists, from emerging talent through to established regional organisations during the summer. The centre is calling for artists, performers or organisations across the city to send videos of their work so it can be broadcast, free of charge, on Trinity Stage. For the opening day, content will include: ‘Aquaplane’, a short contemporary dance video featuring Max Revell that was created by Declan Creffield who is a videographer and photographer based in Leeds ‘Lockdown, Dance Up’ an online children’s dance project created using lockdown video calls by Leeds-based Union of Dance and supported by Arts Council England ‘Petite Boheme’ a 30-minute animated section of La Boheme created by Opera North during lockdown “We are thrilled to launch Trinity Stage and we hope to promote the incredible talents that the city of Leeds has to offer. Showcasing our region’s artists and performers is our way of supporting the arts, which is a sector that’s been hit so hard this last year and a half. Be it emerging artists starting out, or established performers and groups, we want Trinity Stage to be a celebration of the arts and a vehicle to help promote their work to a wider audience,” commented David Maddison, Trinity Leeds Centre Director.

The initial stage of a £19.95m project to construct a Newmains and St Brigid’s Community Hub and Family Learning Centre involving North Lanarkshire Council (NLC), BAM Construction and hub SouthWest, the public-private partnership of local authorities, and leading Tier 1 building contractors, was marked last week (Tuesday 6 July 2021) with a formal sod-cutting ceremony. The project, the first of three North Lanarkshire Council initiatives with a cumulative value of £60m, will create a comfortable and stimulating school environment, purpose built for a shared campus serving both denominational and non-denominational primary, and early years education. It is designed to be conducive to learning for 484 pupils, 88 three-to five-year-olds and 15 two-year-olds. Councillor Frank McNally, Convener of Education & Families, said: “This exciting new project will soon be a brand-new home for Newmains and St Brigid’s Primary schools and also the Newmains Family Learning Centre. “Our focus on health and wellbeing and the outdoor facilities will provide enhanced leisure and recreational facilities for all members of the community to enjoy. Children and young people, staff, parents and the local community have all played a considerable role in developing the design for the new community hub, which takes into account both the requirements of the local community and the natural heritage and architecture of the area. “It’s a shining example of our drive to make North Lanarkshire the place to Live, Learn, Work, Invest and Visit providing children and residents with the benefits of first-class learning environments which will meet the needs of the community for generations to come.” Michael Ross, project director with hub South West, said: “Good design during the procurement and construction process reflects the high value North Lanarkshire Council places on learning, communities and the environment, as well as representing a sound investment in the future. “hub South West has worked closely with the council over the years to develop the robust processes which have permitted the commencement of this and other exciting educational initiatives. “We also welcome this, our first contractual relationship with BAM Construction since it joined our supply chain last year and note with pleasure our shared commitment both to this project and our long-term relationship with North Lanarkshire Council. “Our model of development and delivery prioritises People, Place and Planet and is aimed at creating well-designed places that instil a sense of pride in the community, tackle energy poverty and drive sustainability”. Jim Ward, Regional Director of BAM Ltd added: “We are delighted following the 18-month pre-construction period to be commencing construction works on Newmains and St Brigid’s Community Hub. We have been so impressed with the commitment from the design team, hub South West and in particular North Lanarkshire Councils’ drive to make this project happen.   “We are totally committed to delivering a quality facility along with delivering meaningful social value to the local community and leaving a lasting legacy that the community will be proud of while inspiring the next generation of young learners.”

The Supply Chain Sustainability School, a multi-award-winning initiative which represents a common approach to addressing sustainability within supply chains, has today released its Fairness, Inclusion & Respect (FIR) Annual Culture Survey Report. The School surveyed over 800 of its members across the country, to get their thoughts on the FIR Programme and how the FIR agenda is progressing within the built environment. Mark Lomas, Head of EDI at HS2 Ltd, said: “It’s great to see organisations responding to the FIR survey, giving great insight into EDI across the sector.” The report offered insights into how the School has continued to positively impact organisations and supply chains, reinforcing the School’s mission to be the world-class collaboration enabling a sustainable and fair built environment. With over fifty thousand registered users, the School provides free practical learning and support for the UK built environment, through sustainability training, networking, e-learning modules, tailored assessments, and online resources. The FIR resources are becoming increasingly popular as FIR sits higher on the agenda for many organisations in the industry. Members of the School anonymously stated that the FIR Programme offered “huge benefits for [their] business and life in general” and enabled companies to easily introduce initiatives such as “inclusion moments […] largely due to the influence of FIR ambassadors within the company pushing the initiative.” COVID-19 forced the Supply Chain Sustainability School to move all learning online, resulting in the FIR Programme seeing an increase of 66% of members completing e-learning modules over the past year, and many members accessing FIR online workshops and webinars. Organisations are becoming more conscious of FIR and its benefits to people, profit and enabling a sustainable business model. The School has been identified as a powerful tool to help organisations embed sustainability into their business practices. The FIR survey showed that 55% of businesses felt the FIR Programme helped them win new business, and 58% believe it enabled an improvement in productivity. Furthermore, 62% of respondents feel that the FIR Programme supported their business to retain talent, and 73% felt FIR helps to improve stakeholder engagement. Lucie Wright, Careers Strategy Manager at CITB, said:“More and more construction employers are seeing the benefits in productivity and winning new business that the Fairness, Inclusion and Respect training brings. A workplace that works for everyone will also help retain employees into the future, particularly important during a period of labour shortage, and I would encourage employers to visit the Supply Chain School website to see what free training is available.” The quality of training provided by the FIR Programme has been higher than ever this year. An average of 96% of respondents rated the workshops and materials as “excellent” or “good”, compared with last year’s figure of 91%. There was also a strong impact on individuals, as exhibited by the 89% of respondents who felt they were empowered to deal with FIR issues more effectively as a result of the FIR Programme. A massive 82% of members also felt they had the confidence to challenge poor behaviors in the workplace. Paul Aldridge, Director at WJ Group, said:“This year’s survey demonstrates how people want, need even, to work for organisations with good Fairness, Inclusion and Respect credentials. It shows areas we need to improve and that to be high performing organisations, we need to nurture all our people and allow them to thrive in a psychologically safe, inclusive space. By doing so, we can harvest the business benefits FIR will accrue; improved productivity, safety and collaboration, new business, better staff retention, stakeholder and community engagement.” The School is part-funded by CITB and industry Partners, with the direction of the School being led by over 125 Partners – working in collaboration, they share knowledge and free resources to inspire the UK built environment to drive positive change. The full report can be found on the Supply Chain Sustainability School’s website here.

Construction of state-of-the-art industry standard facilities at The Manchester College’s Openshaw campus has reached an exciting milestone in the build process as Caddick Construction completed the fit of the1,650 sq metre roof on the centrepiece sports hall. The indoor sport facility will host a six-court multi-discipline sports hall with viewing gallery together with a media suite with match analysis capability. The build – which is part of a new £25M investment in redeveloping the Openshaw campus – remains on schedule to open to students in the College’s Centre of Excellence for Sport in September 2021. The sports centre is at the heart of the development which broke ground in July 2020. The expansive roof over the state-of-the-art facility took five weeks of precision work to successfully lower and secure into place. Alongside the sports facilities will be the Industry Excellence Academies which include: a state of the art hospital suite including a mock hospital ward with infectious disease area for Health and Social Care students; specialist facilities for carpentry, joinery, brickwork and plastering for students in Construction and Engineering and a mock nursery setting for students studying Childhood Studies plus a motor vehicle learning facility. The construction project has, so far, created jobs on site for forklift drivers, labourers, apprentice engineers, cleaners and gatemen. It has also provided critical hands-on training opportunities for students from The Manchester College studying on the ACE-accredited Build Environment BTEC course. The construction is part of LTE Group’s £140M long-term investment strategy in response to an increase in demand for regional training and skills. The investment in the construction training facilities is proving to be particularly timely as the North West construction and logistics sectors enjoy a boom fuelled by national and international inward investment to the region. Managing Director of Caddick Construction’s North West office, Ian Threadgold said: “The roof going on smoothly was a major milestone for the team and it was completed on schedule, despite the Manchester climate pretty much throwing everything at us. The facility is really starting to take shape now and it will offer the very latest training and educational opportunities for students arriving back in September.”  Lisa O’Loughlin, Principal at The Manchester College commented: “We are delighted that the construction is on schedule and are looking forward to welcoming our first students into these brand new facilities this September, to study on our childcare, healthcare and construction Industry Excellence Academies and in our Centre of Excellence for Sport.” John Thornhill, CEO of LTE Group, commented: “Investing in our Openshaw Campus is just one element of a broader £140M investment into new facilities, which includes the brand new five storey city centre campus currently under construction next to the AO Arena in Manchester city centre which will open to students September 2022. Investment at this level across multiple locations provides valuable opportunities for future students, ultimately providing a skilled workforce for the Greater Manchester region.” The Manchester College is one of the largest Further Education colleges in the UK and largest single provider of 16-19, adult and higher education in Greater Manchester. More than 25% of Greater Manchester’s learning provision is undertaken by the college.