Health and safety issues are all too often ignored in the workplace and yet it is essential for the goodwill to all (both client and worker) that these are upheld. Every year, the Contamination Expo Series does what it can in order to try and raise people’s awareness of the
SPIE UK are a company that specialize in delivering special forms of security to their clients and have in the last few days been awarded with a special couple of projects to implement for the Clackmannanshire Council in Scotland. It is clear that through this involvement with a Scottish council
Legal & General are trying to cope with the issues surrounding the current housing crisis which is putting many renters under a huge amount of stress and worry due to the unacceptable standards and the lack of scruples by landlords, who are imposing exorbitant rents and causing misery to the
The Bright Futures Charity located in the South Shields area of the United Kingdom is dedicated towards supporting young mothers and giving them the chance to do not put their work at risk when they have children. With more and more zero-hour contracts being issued and with job security at
Category: Construction Industry Today | Subscribe to Construction Industry Today Feed Published Thu, Feb 2nd 2017 Skibbereen Community School, situated on the southern tip of Ireland in County Cork, is a new state-of-the art learning facility created as part of an ambitious multi-million PPP programme. ROCKFON ceiling solutions were installed
The area of Rotherham, which is undergoing a major refurbishment plan to improve the economy and infrastructure of the region over the next few years to come, has benefited from a program in business acceleration that will enable it to increase the development deals that it is currently conducting. This
A human factors, safety and risk consultancy that provides services to safety critical industries has been awarded an R&D grant worth almost £70,000 which will see the company make a significant contribution towards improving the safety and operations of civil nuclear power plants. With the grant plus some internal funding,
Opinium Research and Plentific have been in collaboration together in order to try and determine what it is that makes homebuyers’ minds tick when they decide to choose one property over another and the results have been a little surprising. What the figures indicate first of all is that there
A set of individuals dedicated to premium materials in the building and construction industry known as Alumasc (ALU.L) is very happy to declare the latest news on the contracts obtained by a company known as Levolux. This enterprise in the building and construction industry has enabled itself, based on Alumasc’s
In an age where employee satisfaction rates are not exactly the most encouraging figures on display at the moment, it is good to see that Novus Property Solutions at least are able to recognize the ongoing hard work of their staff and are committed to seeing that they get their
Health and safety issues are all too often ignored in the workplace and yet it is essential for the goodwill to all (both client and worker) that these are upheld. Every year, the Contamination Expo Series does what it can in order to try and raise people’s awareness of the very problems that they may not realize exist but that most certainly do in the workplace of the building and construction industry. Through this initiative, leading members as well as clients are able to attend the event and see for themselves the various (often simple) methods that can be implemented in order to ensure the health and safety for individuals while they are carrying out a task. Issues such as the management of waste that is harmful to the environment and to the individual disposing of the waste product are addressed, and the event itself is seen by many as a good chance for networking their services to other members in the industry who want to know what exactly they have to offer to them. The event itself, set to take place in late September from the 27th to the next day, will be held in London and anyone interested in attending the various classes and seminars is actively encouraged to have a look on the Contamination Expo Series website and see for themselves what the event will feature. Of course, this event is an ever-expanding one, with more and more companies dealing with health and safety opting to attend over the years. Indeed, Daniel Rogers the Event Director of the planned enterprise is pleased to welcome the newest members to the event, who specialize in the handling and disposal of that chemical from hell known as asbestos. With their recent inclusion in the event, it is hoped that they will be able to encourage a wider range of people in the building and construction industry to attend and it is hoped that by September the event will be as fully booked and as successful as can possibly be.
SPIE UK are a company that specialize in delivering special forms of security to their clients and have in the last few days been awarded with a special couple of projects to implement for the Clackmannanshire Council in Scotland. It is clear that through this involvement with a Scottish council the company is improving and expanding the amount of services that it provides and is developing better relationships with the wider community. Having worked with the council on projects before, it seems evident that the company is well geared towards providing greater forms of security for those involved, especially in the social housing sector of the community which forms the first enterprise that the company has been commissioned to complete. SPIE UK will be given a £450,000 amount in order to improve the doors and entrances of various social housing projects in the area in order to bring it up to date with the latest forms of security so that its residents in social housing can remain certain that they are safe where they are. Set to be completed over the course of the next four years, this project if anything consolidates and strengthens the already secure bonds between the security provider and the Clackmannanshire Council, who have expressed their thorough appreciation of the company’s dedication of its excellent services towards project initiatives taking place in the local community. As Paul Stevenson of SPIE UK explains, the implementation of this project over a sustained time period will ensure that the company will not disturb the residents too much and will be able to carry out the tasks at a consistent and comfortable rate that will not disturb the daily routines of the Clackmannanshire residents of the area. Indeed, this represents a great deal of success for the council, whose use of SPIE UK services will undoubtedly help to improve the lives of members of the community for the better.
Legal & General are trying to cope with the issues surrounding the current housing crisis which is putting many renters under a huge amount of stress and worry due to the unacceptable standards and the lack of scruples by landlords, who are imposing exorbitant rents and causing misery to the lives of millions of renters around the country. Part of an initiative that the government wants to implement supposedly to tackle this issue is the BTR (buy to rent) scheme that it announced in its white paper recently, and L & G will be implementing the building and construction of the first of these BTR schemes in Salford on the outskirts of Manchester. The new site itself will be known as The Slate and is set to be opened to potential new residents early this summer, and the company has deployed the services of an enterprise known as “urbanbubble” in order to ensure that the dreams of better and more affordable renting for all is achieved as soon as possible in order to salvage the ruined experiences of many people living in rented properties at the present moment. Indeed, with the construction and building of buy-to-rent properties, it is widely hoped that the scheme will be able to be successfully implemented through this partnership between LGIM and “urbanbubble.” Dan Batterton of LGIM Real Assets hopes that the project will allow renters greater flexibility on the different services that they use and will be able to benefit from more reasonable standards and housing conditions than under the current landlord-tenant guidelines and policies that are in place. In a similar vein, Michael Howard of “urbanbubble” has explained that he is very pleased that the company, of which he is the MD, is partnering up with LGIM Real Assets in order to deliver this new housing project on time and on budget to the best of their ability.
The Bright Futures Charity located in the South Shields area of the United Kingdom is dedicated towards supporting young mothers and giving them the chance to do not put their work at risk when they have children. With more and more zero-hour contracts being issued and with job security at a greater risk for mothers going on maternity leave, it is becoming harder and harder for young mothers from less advantaged backgrounds to be able to juggle the work and family balance in equable measure. Through the support of property association Isos however, the Bright Futures charity organization has been financially aided with a total of £14,700 towards it to helping it to conduct its services to young mothers in the South Shields and surrounding area. The aim of the organization is to help women aged under 25 to get reintegrated into the workforce and to help them to settle themselves back into the challenging work environment. With such services as CV writing workshops as well as helping them with childcare options that are open to them through online internet services as well as other things such as interview guidelines, the “Young Mums and Mums to be Group” dedicates itself every day for up to 10 weeks by helping mothers of a younger demographic to cope with the many 21st Century challenges that working mothers still face on a daily basis in the United Kingdom. Indeed, the opportunities that the program offers are so broad and wide that they even enable young mums to bring their children with them to the various activity sessions that are on, showing that Bright Futures cares about reducing the stress levels of young mothers in the local area. Such initiatives as these also help to build confidence in young mothers who might want to consider other options in their lives: one young woman said that the program had given her the confidence to think about enrolling in a degree at the Open University. This is a wonderful testament to the hard work of Bright Futures in tackling issues that women face in this country.
Category: Construction Industry Today | Subscribe to Construction Industry Today Feed Published Thu, Feb 2nd 2017 Skibbereen Community School, situated on the southern tip of Ireland in County Cork, is a new state-of-the art learning facility created as part of an ambitious multi-million PPP programme. ROCKFON ceiling solutions were installed to help create the ideal conditions for learning and enhance the architect’s contemporary design. Posted via Industry Today. Follow us on Twitter @IndustryToday ROCKFON ceiling systems were selected for Skibbereen because they either met or exceeded the acoustic requirements specified by the Department of Education. Fire safety was also an important factor and ROCKFON products provide Class A1 fire resistance, the safest fire classification.Education buildings need to provide both functional and pleasant spaces. Major contributors to this are light and sound. ROCKFON® Artic™ satisfies these requirements which is why it was installed in classrooms, offices and circulation spaces. ROCKFON Artic tiles have a smooth, white surface which offers optimum light reflection, contributing to a comfortable environment with low glare and reduced eye disturbance. ROCKFON Artic also provides enhanced sound absorption (0.8aw) to ensure teachers can communicate so that students can perform at their best.ROCKFON® Tropic™ D concealed edge ceiling tiles were specifically chosen for the special needs unit. Acoustics are an integral part of the design for these areas. ROCKFON Tropic provides Class A sound absorption which helps create a learning environment that offers optimum speech intelligibility which is essential for all children, but particularly those with learning difficulties.The white, smooth surface of ROCKFON Tropic ceiling tiles offers 85% light reflectance and full light diffusion helping make effective use of available natural light. These excellent lighting conditions help improve the working environment and contribute to a reduction in energy costs. Aesthetically the tiles were the perfect fit because the white surface finish enhances the school’s minimalist design.Cillian Laide from Laide & O’Brien is a member of the ROCKFON Active Installer network of preferred installers. Cillian fitted all the ceilings at Skibbereen School. “Meeting deadlines is easy with ROCKFON. Their products were available from stock, so we received sufficient tiles in just one delivery for the whole job. ROCKFON tiles are durable but at the same time easy to cut and install, so there’s very little waste on the job. We installed Chicago Metallic T24 Click 2890 from ROCKFON as it is quick to install and resilient to work with.”SIG Ireland supplied the ceiling tiles. A leading distributor, SIG can deliver a range of ROCKFON acoustic products from stock via its branches in Ireland and across the UK.ROCKFON’s expertise and technical support were welcomed on site. ROCKFON worked closely with the ceiling installer and architect to ensure everyone was happy with the outcome.ROCKFON has an unrivalled level of experience in the education sector. With an impressive track record backed by in-house technical support, ROCKFON area managers can provide advice on how to create a school building that satisfies regulations and is an inspiring place to learn. For more information, contact ROCKFON at www.rockfon.co.uk. Source link
The area of Rotherham, which is undergoing a major refurbishment plan to improve the economy and infrastructure of the region over the next few years to come, has benefited from a program in business acceleration that will enable it to increase the development deals that it is currently conducting. This was a clear example of collaboration between businesses in order to set up various enterprises that would help to speed up the growth prospects in a region that is looking forward to a lot of change and socio-economic improvement. This enterprise, known as the UKSE Y-Accelerator, was a collaboration between various bodies in operation that ranged from the UK Steel Enterprise to the University of Sheffield itself. Through this, it is greatly hoped that the region will be able to benefit from this and that this will encourage more and more enterprises to develop themselves in the area of Rotherham as the year progresses. Ten lucky squads in total were selected to receive an intense and stimulating business-oriented support crash course over the course of 12 weeks, culminating in a Dragons Den-style pitching session at the prestigious campus of Sheffield Hallam University. After deliberation, the judges ruled that Research Retold, who are originally set up in Sheffield itself, could win the £25 thousand prize. On the other hand, members of the judging committee of UK Steel Enterprise as well as the Sheffield City Region Growth Hub emphasized the excellence and high quality of all of the entries and it is hoped that none will be deterred even if they did not win from carrying on to develop plans and ideas that will ensure the growth and success of the Rotherham region as a whole. Indeed, without ideas and innovation, the kind of which were in full flow at Sheffield Hallam University, such regeneration of the local area would not be possible.
A human factors, safety and risk consultancy that provides services to safety critical industries has been awarded an R&D grant worth almost £70,000 which will see the company make a significant contribution towards improving the safety and operations of civil nuclear power plants. With the grant plus some internal funding, UK based Corporate Risk Associates (CRA) will be conducting a comprehensive research project which will significantly enhance the industry’s understanding of potential system failures in nuclear power plants, aiding both plant safety and the uninterrupted supply of electricity. Awarded by Innovate UK, the UK’s innovation agency which works with people, companies and partner organisations to find and drive the science and technology innovations that will grow the UK economy, the research will be completed throughout the course of this year. Speaking about the grant, Jasbir Sidhu, CEO and Founder of CRA said: “We are delighted to have been awarded this grant which will see CRA develop a process to generate realistic reliability estimates of SMART Control and Instrumentation (SC&I) to increase the safety within nuclear power plants.” SC&I are intelligent control devices that employ programmable electronic components to collect and process data to enhance performance. According to Jasbir, the industry uses assessments of the reliability of engineered systems to understand safety margins. The reliability of SC&I technology is difficult to substantiate due to the inclusion of software, and this leads to an assumption that it performs much worse than indicated by operational experience. “Current methods adopted in the industry involve using high confidence values based on Safety Integrity Levels (SILs), as stipulated in standards such as IEC 61508/IEC 61513. We firmly believe this current method does not give a good indication of the ‘true’ reliability, as SIL figures are considered to be highly conservative. “As such, we are extremely passionate about this project and developing a process that can ensure future decisions are based on realistic reliability estimates. “It is great that we have received this grant from Innovate UK in recognition of the significant impact this project will have on the nuclear, process, transportation, and other high hazard industries where safety is, of course, of paramount importance. Looking ahead this research will have a major impact on the understanding of risks from emerging and growing fields e.g. Data Centres.” The project will be led by experts at CRA, including the company’s Principal Consultant Ashraf El-Shanawany and Consultants Francesca Brandford-Adams and Garth Rowlands who will be researching the approach of Structured Expert Judgement (SEJ). Established in 2000, CRA boasts a team of 40 technical consultants. The company prides itself on managing safety, reliability and risk across the nuclear, rail, defence and process industries, where delivering a robust risk analysis is part of the licensing processes.. The company has recently been awarded work with major organisations, including the Office of Nuclear Regulation, EDF Energy and Babcock International.
Opinium Research and Plentific have been in collaboration together in order to try and determine what it is that makes homebuyers’ minds tick when they decide to choose one property over another and the results have been a little surprising. What the figures indicate first of all is that there is indeed a growing general opinion based among the 2,001 people that were surveyed that building and constructing extensions are not necessarily the way forward for increasing the buying price of one’s home. Indeed, whilst this had been viewed in the past as one of the primary reasons for why some houses are higher in value than others, it seems that among actual property buyers this in itself is not necessarily a guarantee that the buying price of a home will be raised just because the home was fitted with a large extension on it: there are other factors to consider. With this in mind, it will be interesting to see what impact this will have on the building and construction industry: it is possible to speculate that it could result in less and less commissions for extending homes. Although areas around the country have seen a soar in property prices, such as the London Borough of Barking and Dagenham, it seems that adding extensions are not the only way of enabling the asking price of a property buyer to be as high for the home seller as possible. Only 34 per cent of those surveyed said that an extension would persuade them to buy the property, whilst other factors such as a how new the bathroom and kitchen areas of the property ranked much higher up on the list. One wonders whether these findings will help to indicate how the rate of extension building on properties in existence all over the United Kingdom and it seems that people are beginning to prioritize other factors rather than the traditional ones that one might initially expect.
A set of individuals dedicated to premium materials in the building and construction industry known as Alumasc (ALU.L) is very happy to declare the latest news on the contracts obtained by a company known as Levolux. This enterprise in the building and construction industry has enabled itself, based on Alumasc’s report dated 31st January of this year, to secure itself three new contractual deals that will enable it to be able to provide the various parties involved with the appropriate balcony as well as balustrade set ups in the country. What this essentially boils down to is that the company itself will benefit from an injection of £5 million into its accounts that will keep it in the clean for the next two years of business in the industry. This is a huge security measure that will help the company to invest in even more contractual agreements and deals with businesses and will also act as something to fall back on if times prove to be tough given the EU backlash to the referendum that seems to be becoming a more and more inevitable eventuality. This therefore indicates the meteoric rise in Alumasc’s profit prospects and the company’s books have already increased in number of orders to a total of £32.9 million, which sets the company a new record that it has never achieved before now. This is therefore excellent news for Alumasc who have seen their revenues in the past few months increase by 17 per cent to a total of £50.7 million. All of these developments effectively indicate that the group itself is in fact far ahead compared in terms of its increased growth in profits as compared with the rest of market growth all around the United Kingdom and shows that Alumasc is outperforming its other peers in the building and construction sector, proving itself to be a prime example of how companies can do well in the industry and whose example ought to be followed, such as their ongoing commitment to growth and investment despite the warning clouds of Brexit.
In an age where employee satisfaction rates are not exactly the most encouraging figures on display at the moment, it is good to see that Novus Property Solutions at least are able to recognize the ongoing hard work of their staff and are committed to seeing that they get their due rewards for the hard work that they commit to doing in order to ensure the pride and ongoing prosperity of Novus. In an event that celebrates the achievements of the various departments of the company, these awards have been taking place for the past three years and the staff turnout of more than 175 was very impressive and made for an unforgettable evening at the St George’s Park located in the area of Staffordshire. After a sterling speech from Fran Miller of Team Sky, the awards ceremony was kicked off in style with teams and individuals voting for the people that they felt had really stood out during the year. The awards themselves are a good way of seeing how old and new members to the company are recognized for their services and ongoing contributions to the advancement of Novus Property Solutions, with members ranging from Desmond Blackburn (who has been there for 40 years at the company as an interior decorator) to James Riley (who was awarded the Apprentice of the Year prize for his good all-round work at Novus). A whole range of other awards were handed out to various clients and associates , whilst there was even more recognition for the York office base of the company, which was the first department of the company to be coveted with the Safety Excellence prize category which had previously not been something that Novus felt merited the attention of being awarded. It is clear now however that having implemented this new category, Novus are determined to encourage their departments around the company to commit themselves more readily to implementing health and safety measures in the workplace.
