The Construction Products Association, or CPA, has has been asked by the Department for Communities and Local Government in order to join an Industry Response Group. This Group is expected to work alongside Build UK and the Construction Industry Council in order to organise and develop the construction industry’s response
A former office building in Sheffield city centre has been transformed into 32 32 high-end apartments by Building Company Ventures with support from Lloyds Bank Commercial Banking. The new residential scheme on Queen Street include 24 one-bed apartments and eight two-bed apartments with completion expected at the end of December.
On Thursday the 29th of June an agreement has been reached for the construction of Cumbernauld Community Campus. The £34.5 million construction project has been planned in order to create a new high-school as well as a theatre and arts venue. The purpose built construction project for the combined arts
The first turbine foundation that has been designed and constructed by Royal BAM Group has started its journey towards installation as a part of the Blyth Offshore Demonstration Wind Farm project. The turbine foundation has been constructed at the dry dock in Walker, Tyneside and will then be transported up
The second annual report delivered by the Pipeline has showed that the gender diversity of some companies have regressed. The Women Count 2017 report looks at the number of women who hold positions on Executive Committees of companies that feature in the FTSE 350. The figures of the report has
The Glass and Glazing Federation has announced that they have formed a new Government Advisory Panel. This new Advisory Panel has been formed after the horrific event this year regarding the Grenfell Fire as well as the attacks in Manchester and London. The new panel that has been created will
Jet Aire Services has been contracted to carry out refurbishment works on a flood defence facility near Drax. The Leeds Based drainage company has been contracted as part of work to refurbish an essential flood defence for the area. The work was being carried out on Lendall Pump Station, where
The University of Sheffield has teamed up with Sheffield City Council in order to carry out some redevelopment work at the University’s City Centre Campus. The Sheffield City Region Investment Fund will be supplying £2.9 million if investment to the project with the rest supplied by the University. The project
Leading provider of uninterruptible power supplies, MPower UPS, has announced managing director Michael Brooks, will present at the Healthcare Estates Management Conference to be held at The University of Salford, Manchester on 25 July 2017. The conference which is aimed at estate managers in the NHS aims to explore projects
Devonshire Homes has announced that they have appointed a new Managing Director. Tony Lane has been appointed to this position at the award winning West Country property developers after joining from Galliford Try. Devonshire Homes is based in Tiverton and has been operating across the South West of the country
The Construction Products Association, or CPA, has has been asked by the Department for Communities and Local Government in order to join an Industry Response Group. This Group is expected to work alongside Build UK and the Construction Industry Council in order to organise and develop the construction industry’s response to the challenges that have arisen in the industry after the Grenfell Tower Fire. The Industry Response Group will be expected to provide a response that is inclusive and can be employed across the construction industry by using the necessary specialist knowledge and information. The group, working alongside Build UK and CIC are expected to collaborate in order to prevent duplication in their assessments. The Industry Response Group are also working hard to reassure the public that construction industry as a whole in the UK are working in order to respond to the review that has been put in place by the Government in order to make buildings and properties safer. The group will include representatives across the three main industry bodies in the UK, including Build UK; the leading representative organisation for the construction industry; Construction Industry Council, a forum established to offer a voice to all professionals in the industry; and Construction Products Association, working for the manufacturers and distributors in the industry. To begin with the Group will be expected to offer essential advice on how to make specific types of buildings safer in order to protect homes, offices and public buildings. The Group will also be asked to give advice in regards to the most up to date building methods and any other building methods that allow access from technical experts in the industry when needed. There will also be an effort to mobilize the UK when major construction work is required acting as the central government to industry communications point as well as advising the Government on the different sub sectors of the construction industry when needed as well as their ability to carry out work at speed.
A former office building in Sheffield city centre has been transformed into 32 32 high-end apartments by Building Company Ventures with support from Lloyds Bank Commercial Banking. The new residential scheme on Queen Street include 24 one-bed apartments and eight two-bed apartments with completion expected at the end of December. Building Company Ventures has invested £800k into the redevelopment of the Omnia One building which will have an end value of £4.2 million, with Lloyds Bank Commercial Banking backing the project with a development loan worth £820k. The Omnia One building has been owned by Building Company Ventures since 2004, and was operated as serviced offices until redevelopment works began in April this year. Sebastian Brown, director at Building Company Ventures, said: “There’s a strong demand for residential property in Sheffield at the moment, and the new apartments are in a great location. “This is our largest redevelopment to date, and the support we’ve had from Lloyds Bank has been important in helping us achieve this. “The bank was keen to get involved from the outset, and helped us getting started with the project straight away.” Lloyds Bank supported Building Company Ventures when the firm acquired the Omnia building 12 years ago, with a finance package worth £1.7 million. Danny Brooks, relationship director at Lloyds Bank Commercial Banking, added: “Being only a short walk from the city’s bars, shops and restaurants, we’re confident the new high-end flats will be a hit. “Lloyds Bank is committed to supporting SMEs and since 2011, we have grown our net to SMEs by more than 29 per cent, building on six years of consistent lending growth.”
On Thursday the 29th of June an agreement has been reached for the construction of Cumbernauld Community Campus. The £34.5 million construction project has been planned in order to create a new high-school as well as a theatre and arts venue. The purpose built construction project for the combined arts and high school project will be built on the site of the existing Cumbernauld High School. The new project will lead to a brand new secondary school that will be able to accommodate 950 students. This capacity is required following the merge of Cumbernauld and Abronhill High Schools that took place in the 2014-15 academic year. The construction project will also create a new theatre and arts venue that will be used by the Cumbernauld Theatre Trust Ltd and will contain 400 seats in the main auditorium as well as a box office and a collection of different digital arts rooms. Built into the theatre and arts spaces will also be other performance spaces, administrative offices and other support spaces needed to make the new theatre and arts venue popular and operational. This construction project is taking place on behalf of North Lanarkshire Council, and completed by hub South West. This work is thought to be the latest project that has been started by the construction and infrastructure partnership. The lead contract for the construction work is Morrison Construction, who have expressed their hope for a successful development with their partners Hub South West and North Lanarkshire Council. Morrison has worked with this partnership on three projects over the course of three years. No doubt this construction work will be just as successful. These projects that have been carried out over the course of the last three years are all school projects, with the partnership designing and building Clyde Valley Campus and Greenfaulds High School.
The first turbine foundation that has been designed and constructed by Royal BAM Group has started its journey towards installation as a part of the Blyth Offshore Demonstration Wind Farm project. The turbine foundation has been constructed at the dry dock in Walker, Tyneside and will then be transported up the River Tyne in order to be installed just off the coast of Blyth. The foundations are being constructed as part of a cutting edge wind farm development operated by EDF Energy Renewables. EDF acquired the project from Narec, now called ORE Catapult in October 2014 and has been working ever since in order to install five turbines that will be powerful enough to generate 41.5MW of power. The wind farm will be located 6.5km away from the coast in Blyth and it has been estimated using the capacity of the turbines that the farm will be able to generate enough low-carbon electricity in order to provide power to 34,000 homes. The concrete gravity based foundations, or GBFs that have been constructed as part of this wind farm project will make up the first part of the construction. The foundations will be installed using the float and submerge method, the first time for an offshore wind turbine construction project. Over the course of the past 12 months BAM Nuttall has been working on creating these foundations at the Neptune dry dock. However, yesterday, the 11th July, it was announced that the first foundation was on its across the River Tyne to the installation site. It is thought that each of the foundations that are being constructed as a part of the project to build an offshore wind farm weighs more than 15,000 tonnes when they are properly installed on the seabed. There will be a distance between the base and the access platform is 60m. Once the foundations have been installed, cables will be buried into the seabed that will then be connected to each of the turbines.
The second annual report delivered by the Pipeline has showed that the gender diversity of some companies have regressed. The Women Count 2017 report looks at the number of women who hold positions on Executive Committees of companies that feature in the FTSE 350. The figures of the report has shown that only 16% of the members of the Executive Committees are women. This is the same percentage as last year, 2016, showing that the promotion of women into the senior roles of big companies has made no more progress. In another disappointing statistic from the Women Count report, more companies than before have no female members of the Executive Committee and no women in profit and loss roles than they were in 2016. The report created and published by The Pipeline has stated that there is a lot of work to be done in order to improve the industrial world for Women. When looking at the construction companies that are featured in the FTSE 350, it was found that a measly 6% of construction companies have Executive Committees that are at least 25% female. This figure is nineteen percentage points below the average. Construction companies also have a below average proportion of women occupying Profit and Liability roles, at 27% as opposed to the FTSE 350 average of 35%. As a slight improvement, the Women Count report did find that the construction sector is slightly above average when it comes to the number of women executives that sit on main plc boards, with 22% of members being female in comparison to the average of 16%. Analysis that has been carried out as part of the Women Count 2017 report shows that there are economic benefits to hiring more women into these positions, with net profits of those with more women in senior roles almost double than those with fewer women.
The Glass and Glazing Federation has announced that they have formed a new Government Advisory Panel. This new Advisory Panel has been formed after the horrific event this year regarding the Grenfell Fire as well as the attacks in Manchester and London. The new panel that has been created will form a part of the Federation’s Political Strategy Committee going forward. It is thought that the creation of this new panel will allow the Glass and Glazing Federation to coordinate their internal resources as well as their members in order to have a quick but considered reaction to any emergency situation in the future. The panel has been designed to be especially useful when the Government, whether that is locally or nationally, need expert advice on the sectors, products and services that are on offer by the members of the Federation. Phil Pluck the Chief Executive of the GGF has emphasised the importance of the GGF being ready to offer the Government solutions as well as support when incidents take place that involve glass or glazing. The specialised panel will help the GGF organise their members more efficiently. Whereas the Advisory Panel will also work to provide the Federation with a group of advisors that can transition easily between the Government and the Federation. The new Government Advisory Panel will consist of the nominated experts from within the GGF’s specialised members in order to make sure that the best advisors are included with the work on the panel. The Panel will act like a collective voice for the industry for when any emergency situation occurs, with the collection of experts called on to give their opinion and advice as needed. The Trade Association will be promoting their creation of the new Government Advisory Panel to all of the Government departments as well as local councils around the country and the media, in order to show that the horrendous events of the past year has spurred action.
Jet Aire Services has been contracted to carry out refurbishment works on a flood defence facility near Drax. The Leeds Based drainage company has been contracted as part of work to refurbish an essential flood defence for the area. The work was being carried out on Lendall Pump Station, where a drainage pipe needed upgrade works carrying out. The project took three weeks and was organised in order to coincide with the twice daily low tides of the nearby River Ouse. The technicians working for Jet Aire had to travel within the 1524mm-diameter pipe in order to carry out work to reinforce the ten internal joint seals of the pipe. The work that has been carried out by the Leeds based drainage company, Jet Aire Services, was the second phase a £20,000 maintenance programme that has been planned by Jet Aire. In 2010, an exploration with CCTV took place as a part of a through upgrade that had been planned in partnership with JBA Consulting, a Skipton based company. The wok is being carried out by Jet Aire and others on behalf of the Selby Area Internal Drainage Board. Lendall Pump Station was first constructed in 1969 and the work that has taken place to refurbish this pump is one of 72 schemes of work taking place to improve the flood defence and alleviation systems in Yorkshire since the funding was announced for the work to be carried out by the Environment Agency in 2013. The contracted works being awarded to Jet Aire is a reflection of the companies abilities to carry out the work required. Jet Aire is considered to be one of only a few drainage contractors located in the north of the country that are able to carry out the work on the Lendall Pump project.
The University of Sheffield has teamed up with Sheffield City Council in order to carry out some redevelopment work at the University’s City Centre Campus. The Sheffield City Region Investment Fund will be supplying £2.9 million if investment to the project with the rest supplied by the University. The project has been valued at around £8 million and will transform the University of Sheffield’s City Campus as well as improve the City Centre. The construction work on the site is being carried out in order to make the City Center Campus safer as well as nicer in terms of appearance. The work being carried out will see safe green spaces introduced to the campus as well as Guardrails installed to further improve pedestrian and cyclist safety on the campus. There will be better pedestrian crossings added to Upper Hanover Street and Wester Bank as well as more cycle routes introduced in the area. By improving the facilities on the campus and the area surrounding it, it is hoped that more people will be encouraged to visit the cafes nearby, Weston Park and the new safe green spaces. The redevelopment is also supposed to encourage others in Sheffield to utilise the facilities on the University’s campus. Alpha Rail has been contracted to this development in order to supply guardrails for the new and existing pedestrian walkways and cycle paths. Alpha Rail were contracted to the site by North Midland Construction. The rails have been installed on uneven terrain on the site, so specific measurement were required in order to provide the correct sections for the construction work. There will also me more trees and shrubs planted on the site in order to improve the green spaces on site. There has also been some architectural artwork installed on location to make the campus more appealing and to provide a point of interest at the location.
Leading provider of uninterruptible power supplies, MPower UPS, has announced managing director Michael Brooks, will present at the Healthcare Estates Management Conference to be held at The University of Salford, Manchester on 25 July 2017. The conference which is aimed at estate managers in the NHS aims to explore projects driving efficiencyhow efficiencies can help save costs and improve clinical outcomes within the healthcare industry. “Eliminating the risks of computer and equipment downtime is essential for those working in critical environments such as the NHS,” confirms Michael Brooks, managing director of MPower UPS. “Uninterruptible power supplies which provide continuous power availability, fault-tolerance and remove single points of failure are necessary to ensure availability. However, energy efficiency also needs to be considered carefully, as this impacts on the overall cost of system implementation. “Therefore, in the presentation: The truth About UPS Energy Efficiency – The Real Cost to the NHS, as well as examining the need for power supply continuity, I will evaluate; optimum system design, efficiency and de-risking in addition to exploring total cost of ownership including ongoing maintenance costs. Delegates will gain an insight into selecting the right system for the job, discovering the importance of the correct ancillary infrastructure and learn about optimising energy efficiency to control costs.” Michael Brooks has worked in the UPS industry for more than 30 years and in 2005 founded MPower UPS Ltd. The Company is now a leading international provider of comprehensive, high quality and reliable uninterruptible power solutions to a diverse client base including healthcare environments, government departments and the NHS. MPower’s head office is in Alton, Hampshire and at the end of 2016 it opened a second office in Stoke to help service its growing client base in the Midlands and the North. As well as presenting at the conference, MPower will have an exhibition stand plus experienced staff on-hand to discuss the efficient use of UPS systems within the NHS. For further information please see: www.mpowerups.co.uk
Devonshire Homes has announced that they have appointed a new Managing Director. Tony Lane has been appointed to this position at the award winning West Country property developers after joining from Galliford Try. Devonshire Homes is based in Tiverton and has been operating across the South West of the country since 1992. The development company has a number of new developments in progress at the moment and works to make sure that they are delivering new homes to the highest standard possible with the award winning experience that they have accumulated of the years. Tony previously worked as a Pre-Construction and Development Director for Galliford Try. In this role Tony helped to deliver a variety of complex projects throughout the residential, commercial and regeneration sectors. Tony Lane worked at Galliford Try for 27 years and was an integral to the expansion of the Group’s Midas and Linden brands. Tony was also a founding director of the Galliford Try Partnerships division during his career at the Group. Other responsibilities included all of the Commercial and Development activities for the PLC. In his new role at Devonshire Homes, Tony will be able to draw on his wealth on knowledge that has come from spending a large section of his career at Galliford Try. Tony will be an asset in is new managing director role at Devonshire Homes and her will be overseeing a wide range of operations within the company. Tony will be required to manage operations spanning from land purchases all the way to customer service for the house building company. After such a long period at Galliford Try, Tony was attracted to the reputation the Devonshire Homes has built for creating a product of high quality. Tony has also expressed his eagerness to join a private company that has shown clear ambitions for growth. The house builders have plans to launch two more sites during this summer and are preparing to deliver high quality homes that are demand across north and mid Devon.