Unite has called on the Scottish Government to look into the union’s allegation that local workers are being shut out of employment opportunities at Viridor’s new £177m energy-from-waste (EfW) plant in East Lothian. Unite has written to environment secretary Richard Lochhead seeking talks over claims that national employment agreements for the industry have been ignored and local workers have been excluded from accessing 250-300 skilled jobs at the Oxwellmains facility in Dunbar. In response, Viridor told MRW that its main contractor will maximise local employment, has made two major awards to Scottish sub-contractors and brought in locally sourced materials. In a statement, Unite alleged significant recruitment of labour from the continent and the undercutting of the National Agreement for the Engineering Construction Industry, which sets terms and conditions for hourly-paid workers on major projects. Unite national officer Bernard McAulay said: “We want the Government to bring all parties to the table and ensure Viridor and its sub-contractors sign up to our national trade agreement or a specific project agreement.” According to McAulay, payment issues have become a major concern for the union, with contractors at other EfW project sites paying foreign workers the equivalent of €8 (£5.65) per hour compared with the estimated €21 (£14.80) per hour under the agreement. Viridor confirmed that Unite had made contact to request a meeting on 6 August, the same day the union issued its public statement. A spokesman said: “Viridor’s £177m merchant investment at Dunbar, East Lothian, is part of £357m invested in next generation Scottish recycling and green energy infrastructure in the past 18 months alone. This investment is vital to translating Scottish zero waste policy into practice, helping councils, companies and communities become cleaner and greener. “In addition to already working with East Lothian Council’s economic development team, established programmes such as our partnership with the Engineering Development Trust are already in place to maximise skilled and professional opportunities for young people. “The contractor announced its intention to maximise local employment and supply chain opportunities in July via a series of recruitment and ‘meet the buyer’ events, and it looks forward to confirming dates shortly. Indeed, it has made two major subcontract awards to Scottish companies, Fairhurst consulting engineers and Land Engineering, with stone for the earthworks being sourced from within East Lothian.” Earlier this month Suez UK rejected Unite allegations that the company and its construction partner Sembcorp failed to recognise the same agreement for workers building an EfW plant on Teesside. The body responsible for the national agreement, the Engineering Construction Industry Association, declined to comment.

DF has announced preferred bidders for Hinkley Point C, with the contracts for larger components likely to go to French firms. How could UK industry participate more on future nuclear projects? Last week’s poll can only be described as deeply inconclusive. Despite a reasonably strong response, with 772 readers completing the poll, by far the largest group, almost 70 per cent, voted for none of the options we had suggested; and although we deliberately ask people who have chosen the ‘None of the above’ response to explain their choice in comments, only one of the 528 indecisive respondents did so, which makes it impossible to draw any conclusions. The helpful respondent said that he thought UK firms should have nothing to do with nuclear new-build until all of the waste from pevious generations of reactors had been safeky disposed of, although hew didn’t add any thoughts on how this could be achieved to his satisfaction. Although it is of course possible that his feelings were shared by the other 527, it seems unlikely in the light of previous polls and articles on UK nuclear, so we simply cannot say what other options we should have included to get a more conclusive response (it might be worthwhile to say that we can only give a maximum of six options in our online polls). Of the 244 respondents who did pick one of our suggested options, the largest group, 15 per cent, said that future UK nuclear should follow the pattern of previous reactor generations, using technology developed in the UK to draw on a British supply chain. Two options tied on 7 per cent: the renationalisation of the energy sector to ensure that UK companies benefit; and that the government should ensure that main contracts are placed with UK forms. A further 2 per cent noted that UK forging capacity needs to be expanded so that it can handle the large steel components neeeded for nuclear installations. Read more: http://www.theengineer.co.uk/civil/news/last-weeks-poll-ensuring-uk-involvement-in-nuclear/1020833.article#ixzz3jLoPZwrJ

Legal & General has ploughed £162m into a major regeneration project in Leeds, the first to be delivered as a result of the institutional investor’s partnership with the government’s Regeneration Investment Organisation (RIO).

A Balfour Beatty worker killed while working on the M3 in Surrey has been named by police as 28-year old Ben Collins.

Consultancy heavyweights CH2M Hill and Atkins have teamed up as a joint venture to bid to become the engineering delivery partner for HS2.

NG Bailey grew its underlying profit by 43 per cent during 2013/14, despite continuing to shrink its building construction business.

A laser technique developed to explore features on bodies in space is proving its worth in improving the efficiency of steelmaking A group of UK companies and institutions with ties to the space industry has developed a technique for detecting defects in cast steel which could improve efficiency in all types of steelmaking. The process, which uses lasers, operates continuously and could help reduce manufacturing costs and the amount of material sent to scrap, the team claims. The laser technique can detect defects on the surface of cast steel at around 1000°C The space connection to the process is that it is based on techniques originally developed to analyse features on the surface of Mars. The developing consortium includes the Centre for Process Innovation (CPI), which is part of the High Value Manufacturing Catapult, along with Tata Steel, MPI, Innovative Small Instruments and the Mullard Space Science Laboratory at University College London, who were working as part of the two-year HTP-Control project funded by InnovateUK. The process, which uses digital image analysis and is non-destructive, operates at temperatures around 800°C, making it suitable for the environment of a steelworks, and detects cracks and defects in hot-cast steel, the type which is produced in rolling-mills for processing into sheets, tubes and bars. Defects can occur at a number of points in the production process, leading to formation of pinholes and cracks that ruin the strength of the material and tend to lead to product rejection and remelting, increasing the steelworks’ energy usage. It could also potentially be used in glassmaking, ceramics, titanium and other metal alloy casting processes. Tata has installed a pilot version of the technology at its Scunthorpe steelworks for evaluation. “We are delighted with the outcome of the HTP-Control project, a true collaboration where the individual partners have benefited enormously through the bringing together of the whole innovation value chain, from world class research to technology innovation through to industry drive,” commented Prof Jan-Peter Muller, head of imaging at the Mullard Lab “The project has demonstrated true ‘spin-off’ by taking technology that was previously used in the space sector for Mars exploration and applying it to the manufacture of steel. The technology developments achieved are significant for the UK and should benefit a number of high value manufacturing sectors.” Neville Slack, programme manager at CPI, comented: “The project has been of great benefit to CPI and has provided the opportunity to apply these novel defect detection techniques in a number of new projects and also across a range of industries. One example is our continuing collaboration with IS Instruments within other projects and specifically the development of on-line Raman Spectroscopy within the Process Industry.’  

Exclusive: Interserve has had its civils contract on a £120m waste incinerator plant cancelled after the main contractor cited “significant delays” to the work.

Lafarge Tarmac has relaunched as Tarmac following the completion of CRH’s multi-billion pound takeover deal of assets sold under the Lafarge and Holcim merger.