With a long-established track record of delivering expert civil engineering solutions across the Midlands, O’Brien Contractors is proud to be named SME of the Year at the West Midlands Celebrating Construction Awards 2016.   O’Brien scooped the highly acclaimed award for investing in its people, focusing on improving customer satisfaction and adopting industry best practises across all areas of the business. O’Brien was also praised for its commitment to sustainability and maintaining an above industry record for health and safety.   Peter O’Brien, Managing Director, said: “A fundamental element of our success has been the commitment we’ve placed to the Midlands. We believe by focussing on the region, we can forge strong and long-lasting relationships with clients and our supply chain facilitating greater collaboration, essential in delivering projects successfully.”   Established in 1958, O’Brien has partnered with the region’s leading industry clients, including: Morgan Sindall, Aston University, John Sisk & Son, Kier Group and University of Birmingham.   Peter added: “It’s not just about consolidating your efforts into one area. We have continually invested back into the business so that we have a highly talented and knowledgeable team, operate the most efficient plant and technology, and benchmark against industry best practices, like Achilles BuildingConfidence – having achieved a 5-star rating in 2014. This regional award recognises the hard work and commitment of the whole O’Brien team.”

London’s new mayor of London Sadiq Khan has accused his predecessor of letting down Londoners and “leaving the cupboard bare” when it comes to delivering affordable housing in the city. Above: Sadiq Khan Khan also blames Boris Johnson for a construction skills crisis. He said that annual construction apprenticeship starts in London average just 7% cent of the national total and that a total of 100,000 planned apprenticeships starts were missed during the previous mayor’s second term. Immediately after taking over from Boris Johnson last week, Khan asked officials to produce an urgent audit of City Hall’s preparedness to tackle the housing crisis. Khan said that the audit revealed affordable home delivery at near-standstill. Last year, the previous mayor delivered the lowest number of new affordable homes since current records began back in 1991 – just 4,880 – and left a legacy of just 13% affordable homes coming forward through planning permissions granted under his watch, according to Khan. Khan found a flawed process for identifying public land for homes. The previous mayor’s work to produce a digital ‘Doomsday Book’ of public land ncludes scores of sites that will never be built on, including 10 Downing Street, City Hall and the British Museum, found Khan’s audit. Khan has pledged to build new homes on land owned by City Hall, including Transport for London land, and intends to fast-track scores of sites that are suitable for development. He wants to see 50% of all new homes in London being genuinely affordable, also plans to bid to develop other public sector land across London. He has said that he will work with Government ministers to ensure a far more active role for City Hall in identifying surplus public land that can be used for the construction of the new affordable housing London needs. He said: “London gave me the opportunity to go from the council estate where I grew up to being able to buy a family home we could afford. But today, too many Londoners are being priced out of our city. One of the first things we did when we got to City Hall was open the books and look at what was already in the pipeline and it seems the previous mayor has grossly let down Londoners by leaving the cupboard bare when it comes to delivering affordable housing. “I am determined to fix London’s housing crisis and ensure that all Londoners have the opportunity to rent or buy a decent home at a price they can afford, but the scale of the challenge is now clearer than ever and we’re not going to be able to turn things around overnight. “We will be outlining our plans in the coming months, but one of the first things we can do is work with Transport for London to fast-track their numerous surplus sites for development that have previously just been sat on.”

FROM RECYCLING FLOORING FOR TRAFFIC CONES TO RE-USING SOLVENTS FOR FUEL, PORTAKABIN ANNOUNCES MORE SUSTAINABILITY INITIATIVES The Portakabin Group, the UK’s leading modular building specialist, has announced more sustainability commitments and initiatives to help its customers further reduce their carbon footprint. Waste streams from the manufacture of its modular buildings at its international production centre in York have been increased from 18 to 26 and now include: •    Used vinyl flooring recycled for traffic cones and other plastic products •    Take-back schemes for batteries, fluorescent bulbs, printer cartridges and new vinyl flooring offcuts •    Waste streams for plastics increased from 3 to 5 and mastic tubes are now recycled •    5 metal waste streams for recycling different grades of steel, aluminium and copper •    Waste from solvents is re-used as furnace fuel. The Group has invested £100,000 in a new high-tech saw machine which uses advanced technology to optimise material usage, further reducing waste. Derek Carter, Chief Executive of the Portakabin Group said, “Our objective of zero waste to landfill at our York factory was successfully achieved in 2013 – and since then we have won a number of awards for environmental excellence. However, we are firmly committed to continually raising the bar and achieving even more improvements to our waste management processes and sustainability performance.” “Our teams across the business are constantly looking at new ways to increase recycling, reduce waste, further improve the recycled content of our products and the re-use of our buildings when they reach end of life. This is all outstanding work which gives our customers even greater confidence in the sustainability of our approach and in the reduced carbon footprint of all of our buildings.” Other new waste minimisation initiatives: •    The Group’s 50 UK Hire and Visitor Centres now separate out paper and cardboard for recycling, and plasterboard on the larger sites •    Investment in specially-designed containers to hold and protect components for the modular manufacturing process. These ‘stillages’ are then sent back to suppliers for re-filling, removing the need for packaging •    The introduction of a new reporting structure to achieve further reductions in energy consumption and waste, and demonstrating the importance Portakabin places on leadership in this area •    Increased use of internal education programmes to continually raise awareness of waste management best practice among staff at every level •    An active Corporate Social Responsibility  (CSR) programme which instigates and promotes community recycling initiatives across the Group – such as collections for local clothes banks and for the distribution of spectacles to developing countries; the donation of carpet tiles and furniture to local schools and libraries following an office refurbishment, and timber offcuts to help Portakabin volunteers transform an area of wasteland into an allotment for local children •    The extension of a programme to segregate and recycle six streams of office waste. This is now being rolled out across the whole of the York headquarters site, following successful trials •    Portakabin now has compactors for general waste and bailers at its York manufacturing centre to put cardboard, soft plastics, plastic bottles and plastic strapping into bails. This reduces transportation and carbon emissions by achieving higher tonnage with each truck movement. These latest initiatives follow a host of existing commitments, which include Portakabin sourcing its steel supplies locally. 79 per cent of the steel used in its modular manufacturing process continues to be supplied from within the UK, which is more sustainable, strongly supports British manufacturing, procures steel of the highest quality, and minimises the carbon footprint of Portakabin buildings. www.portakabin-group.co.uk  

Commercial Marine & Piling has entered administration         Above: Past projects include cofferdam work at Canary Wharf The company’s registered address is in Poole in Dorset and it has two principal trading addresses, one at Ringwood in Hampshire and the other at River Thames Wharf in Northfleet in Kent. Commercial Marine & Piling Ltd (CMP) was founded in 1986, initially specialising purely in piling. Piling remains a core part of the business but the acquisition of Branford Civil & Marine Ltd in 1999 led to expansion and diversification into marine civil engineering and specialist marine piling. The company has said that it has the capacity to act as principal contractor for projects up to £7m, and as a specialist sub-contractor on larger projects. It carries out contracts across the UK, with its River Thames Wharf site used as a base from which to mobilise and co-ordinate marine construction works along the River Thames. The adminstrators are Benjamin Wiles and Geoffrey Bouchier of Duff & Phelps Ltd, based in the Shard in London. This article was published on 16 May 2016 (last updated on 16 May 2016). Source link

 – New digital platform is designed to plug the skills gaps of the global construction community at a key time of challenge and change – BRE’s training and education arm, the BRE Academy, has launched a new eLearning platform (bre.ac) designed to meet the changing needs of the construction operatives, professionals and leaders in the UK and around the world. With an initial 25 digitally delivered courses ranging from BIM Essentials and BREEAM Associate to Manging Change – Risk in Construction, the aim of bre.ac is to make and deliver quality education and training more accessible to time poor people and organisations needing to upskill. Courses carry recognised qualifications* and CPD certification** and are developed by leading global experts in the field. At a time when the skills shortages and gaps are thought to be significantly hindering progress in the construction sector, 250 modules of the new portal’s BIM Essentials course were sold during the live beta testing stage of the site with multiple sales for staff in world renowned design and engineering consultancy BDP. ‘BDP sees the BIM Essentials online training course as an important step along our BIM journey. By providing a flexible learning platform that addresses the UK BIM Level 2 mandate and associated processes we will raise awareness and knowledge across a wider staff base, moving past software training and ensure job runners have skills necessary to address BIM Level 2 and beyond’. BRE Academy Director Pauline Traetto said ’One of the key issues we identified in our recent skills gap survey was the need for accessible learning via the web and mobile that fits around the people rather than the training providers – bre.ac represents the positive action we decided to take in response to this. The early indications from course sales data are most encouraging with several hundred people accessing learning in their workplace, while commuting on the train and in the comfort of their home. With the global online training market predicted to grow by 18% by 2020, for us this is the future of learning’ To celebrate the launch of the new platform, the BRE Academy is offering 50% discount on courses booked on 16 May only. For further information please contact Linda McKeown, BRE, email linda.mckeown@bre.co.uk or go to www.bre.ac