Salix Homes, the multiple award winning social housing provider has been supporting the work to clear nearly 5 tonnes of rubbish from the streets of Salford. The housing association has been working to support community clean-ups on the Whit Lane Estate in Charlestown. There has also been clear up projects
Housing Association, Salix Homes has been joined by their partner contractors in the launch of a new recruitment drive which is taking place. Salix and team are looking to encourage more women to consider having a career in the construction industry. Salix Homes owns over 8,300 properties across Salford and
The Considerate Constructors Scheme, otherwise known as CCS, has awarded the construction and engineering group Kier with their first Utra site award. This accolade has been given to the construction group for their project in Wales. The Kier Sports Park 2 development is located on Treforest Industrial Estate and has
RCM, the complete through wall solutions provider for the UK construction industry has announced that they have formed a new charity partnership with the Douglas Macmillan Hospice. The DougieMac hospice looks after adult patients with a palliative or end of life diagnosis. The hospice serves people across North Staffordshire and
Story Homes, the award winning house building company has announced that they are focused on improving the experience of their customers. The company has made a move towards these improvements with the appointment of a Head of Customer Experience and Communications and a Quality Assurance Project Manager. Story Homes is
The RSPB has joined forces with Barratt Homes and Manthorpe Building Products to develop a brick that doubles as a nesting box for swifts. The largest nature conservation charity in the UK says that the number of swifts has nearly halved in the last 20 years and that new nesting
Skanska is planning to introduce robotic technology for the next phase of construction of the Battersea Power Station development. Having received a £700,000 grant from Innovate UK last summer to develop the robots, the contractor’s head of innovation, Sam Stacey, says that the technology will be ready to use on
Viewpoint Construction Software has announced that Costain has selected Viewpoint as a technology partner, purchasing Field View (formerly Priority1). Field View offers contractors a flexible and powerful framework for re-engineering any paper-based process and managing day-to-day project operations like defect management, snagging/punch lists, quality control, auditing, compliance, and health & safety and
Salix Homes, the multiple award winning social housing provider has been supporting the work to clear nearly 5 tonnes of rubbish from the streets of Salford. The housing association has been working to support community clean-ups on the Whit Lane Estate in Charlestown. There has also been clear up projects held around Duchy Road, with residents working together in these areas in order to clear the neighbourhoods of old furniture, dumped rubbish and other fly-tipped waste. Helping in this tremendous clean-up effort, more than 20 local children worked to help, getting involved in the clearing of two tonnes of waste from the area. The neighbourhood manager for Duchy, Kersal and Langworthy from Salix Homes, Mick Walsh has said that it is great to see so many children getting involved in the clean-up of their community. The dedication that has been shown by children and adults alike in this clean-up session has showed just how important it is to maintain a clean community environment, and how this action can bring a community closer together. The children that got involved in this project were rewarded for all of their hard work and enthusiasm with some fruit bags that have been donated by McDonalds. In Charlestown, the residents and staff from Salix Homes worked together in order to clear away two and a half tonnes of rubbish, leaves and other debris from the Whit Lane estate area. It has been great to see how many people came out to tidy up their community, and make it a better place to live. Salix Homes has issued a thanks to everyone who came out to lend a hand at both sites. The valuable time that has been given to help support the community will have environmental benefits as well as keeping community relations strong and create more of a sense of belonging in the residents.
Housing Association, Salix Homes has been joined by their partner contractors in the launch of a new recruitment drive which is taking place. Salix and team are looking to encourage more women to consider having a career in the construction industry. Salix Homes owns over 8,300 properties across Salford and has announced that they are inviting applications from both male and female candidates for their latest intake of apprentices. The applicants will, if successful, have the opportunity to get involved with their multi-million pound investment programme. The Housing Association has already committed to creating two new apprenticeship places for every £1 million that has been invested. The apprenticeships will be perfect opportunities for local people to begin a career in this industry. The commitment has been made by Salix as part of their Earn as you Learn initiative. Salix are proud to be working alongside their partner contractors in order to offer a range of training and employment opportunities for local people. Research has shown that only 14% of the workforce in the construction industry is female. Salix Homes believes that this needs to be changed and that women should be encouraged to pursue a career in the construction industry. The Earn as you Learn initiative offers an amazing opportunity for young people, that teaches them valuable skills, experience and qualifications while earning a wage. On offer is either two or three year apprenticeships in offered by the procurement consortium Procure Plus. Available is a range of principal trades such as plastering, gas engineering and site logistics. Apprentices on these courses will be working towards their NVQ Level 2 and 3 qualifications while gaining experience and earning money. Over the course of the past two years Salix Homes has recruited 45 apprentices to work across their organisation and their partner contractors.
The Considerate Constructors Scheme, otherwise known as CCS, has awarded the construction and engineering group Kier with their first Utra site award. This accolade has been given to the construction group for their project in Wales. The Kier Sports Park 2 development is located on Treforest Industrial Estate and has managed to become the only site in the whole of Wales to be given the title. For a site to be considered to the Ultra award, the main contractor must get all of the subcontractors, designers and suppliers for the construction work to sign up to the scheme. This means that everyone working on a project are then able to all work together in order to make sure that they achieve the highest score possible. Kier managed this by putting a number of measures in place and also worked in collaboration with the supply chain for the Sports Park 2 in order to ensure everyone is working together to achieve the best score they can. As part of the work towards the Ultra award, Kier installed on the site an interactive hoarding to be used by the public. This feature allowed people near to the site to be able to see what the scheme will look like when construction work is completed. On the hoarding there was a painted silhouette of a sea telescope that acted as a viewing hole, encouraging people to look into the box weatherproof box that contained a digital picture frame loaded with computer generated images of the finished site. Since the scheme began Kier have been focused on looking at a number of different ways in which the sirte operations can be improved as well as improving public engagement. Being able to achieve the CCS Ultra scheme is great news for the company and the site as it reflects the hard work put in by subcontractors and workers on the site as well as the opportunity to meet their own business targets.
RCM, the complete through wall solutions provider for the UK construction industry has announced that they have formed a new charity partnership with the Douglas Macmillan Hospice. The DougieMac hospice looks after adult patients with a palliative or end of life diagnosis. The hospice serves people across North Staffordshire and offers free care and support 24 hours a day and 7 days a week through the help and support of staff and volunteers working diligently to have a positive impact on the lives of and journeys of their patients. The hospice sports those living with cancer as well as other non-cancer illnesses that are life limiting. The DougieMac hospice was established in 1973, serving primarily the North Staffordshire area for more than 40 years. The hospice the only one of its kind to offer care only to adults in this area therefore all of the help and work that goes into delivering the proper care is vital. The DougieMac relies heavily on donations from the local community. This is because they need to source 75% of their running costs from voluntary donations in order to keep the hospice running. At the moment it has been calculated that the operational costs for the hospice are just under £12 million a year. RCM have committed to raising as much as possible for the local hospice, and a dedicated to supporting this charity and the good work that they carry out for palliative care patients in the area. As part of their efforts to fundraise for the charity, RCM will be hosting a Corporate Charitable Golf Day to raise money for DougieMac. This event will be held in September and will offer the construction supply company the opportunity the chance to give back to the local community in North Staffordshire.
Story Homes, the award winning house building company has announced that they are focused on improving the experience of their customers. The company has made a move towards these improvements with the appointment of a Head of Customer Experience and Communications and a Quality Assurance Project Manager. Story Homes is in the prestigious position of being one company of only 14 across the entire of the UK that holds a five star rating for their customer service. The five star Homes Builders Federation 5 Star Builder award has been retained by the company for the past four years. This industry awarded accolade is great news for this well known company, who has already managed to develop a reputation for the quality of the houses they build as well as the service that is offered to their customers. The House building company is keen to maintain and develop on their customer service reputation with these two new senior management appointments. Story Homes also the proud holder of the Gold and the Outstanding accreditation’s from In-house Research which is another customer satisfaction body operating in the residential property sector. Story Homes has expanded recently, beginning to operate in Scotland, the North East and the North West in more recent years. However the developer that is headquartered in Carlisle is still looking to make sure that their expansion plans don’t impact on their customer service levels. The developer have promoted two of their existing employees into the roles of Head of Customer Experience and Communications and a Quality Assurance Project Manager. Tracy Calvert has been working for the company for four years and has been appointed as the Head of Customer Experience and Communication. Adam osliff has been appointed into the Quality Assurance Project Manager role after working in the the site-based production team at Story Homes for 13 years. Both new appointments will bring experience and expertise to their roles and will no doubt aid Story Homes as the company continues to expand.
The RSPB has joined forces with Barratt Homes and Manthorpe Building Products to develop a brick that doubles as a nesting box for swifts. The largest nature conservation charity in the UK says that the number of swifts has nearly halved in the last 20 years and that new nesting boxes are required to help recover the numbers as they return to the UK every summer to breed. Swifts embark on a 6,000 mile migration to nest in the UK, however falling population numbers mean that there are now fewer than 90,000 breeding pairs arriving in the UK, which is down from nearly 150,000 pairs 20 years ago. The decline is partially linked to a reduction in the number of potential nesting sites. Manthorpe Building Products, a British based manufacturing firm, has worked with Barratt Homes and the RSPB to produce the new swift brick, which is designed for easy incorporation during the construction of new homes. The first batch of new swift nest boxes have just been fitted at the Kingsbrook development in Aylesbury, Buckinghamshire and overall Barratt will install up to 900 swift boxes in new homes at Kingsbrook. One of the primary aims of the RSPB and Barratt Homes partnership since it launched two years ago has been the provision of more nesting sites for swifts. By working in partnership, they commissioned the Manthorpe project to develop a new swift nest box design that is easy to install during construction. Barratt Developments Group Design and Technical Director, Michael Finn, commented: “The bricks are an industry first – they are fully drained, ventilated and are unobtrusive, by matching the colour of the bricks. They also help nurture chicks by giving them room to stand when they hatch. “Crucially too, they are much, much cheaper than any other swift brick on the market, which will help their uptake.”
Skanska is planning to introduce robotic technology for the next phase of construction of the Battersea Power Station development. Having received a £700,000 grant from Innovate UK last summer to develop the robots, the contractor’s head of innovation, Sam Stacey, says that the technology will be ready to use on the project in the space of nine months. Mr Stacey reaffirmed that Skanska is the preferred bidder for the second phase of the Battersea Power Station project and if appointed their advanced robot techniques will be ready to be used on the work for the scheme. He estimates that ‘utility cupboards’, which house M&E components for individual apartments, would be delivered 20 times quicker if they were to use robots rather than in-situ methods, adding that the company’s flying factories base in Slough had reduced cupboard construction times by 65%. In the first phase of the Battersea scheme, Skanska built 300 cupboards in situ because of constraints on the site, while 440 were built off site, which allowed them to compare the two construction methods. The cupboards manufactures offsite took 18 man hours to construct compared with 42 hours for the ones built on site. Furthermore, Stacey revealed that they were almost 50% cheaper including factory overheads and had 73% less defects. However, by using robots in factories, the company believes it can cut the amount of man hours that are required to build the cupboards to just two hours. Skanska is also looking for ways robotic technology can be used in other areas, which may soon start to appear on construction sites in the UK, while in Norway the company is working with high tech start up nLink (a mobile drilling robot firm) to develop robots that can be used to fix and drill soffits. Furthermore, the firm has been working in conjunction with ABB for the development of a robot that can set out rebar cages in Sweden.
Viewpoint Construction Software has announced that Costain has selected Viewpoint as a technology partner, purchasing Field View (formerly Priority1). Field View offers contractors a flexible and powerful framework for re-engineering any paper-based process and managing day-to-day project operations like defect management, snagging/punch lists, quality control, auditing, compliance, and health & safety and environment through the power and simplicity of tablets. After a thorough review to find the most suitable mobile system, Costain selected Field View and plans to implement its use companywide in an effort to reduce the amount of paperwork required on jobs. “Field View is a way of digitizing our paper-based forms out in the field. Instead of taking a traditional sheet of paper around to several locations for signatures, a digital form can be distributed to multiple people for approval instantly,” stated Costain Mobile BIM Technician, Harrison O’Hara. “This saves not only time, but also paper, which equates to both efficiency and carbon reductions.”
