A new government hub in Peterborough has officially opened by Cabinet Office Minister Alex Burghart last week. The Hub is in Fletton Quays, an area undergoing a £120 million regeneration, and will house more than 1,000 government staff from a number of departments and agencies. Staff from the Department for
A new border control facility has been completed at one of the UK’s major ports, Harwich International Port in Essex. Operated by Hutchison Port, the facility will enable the smooth and secure inspection of goods entering the UK under the latest post-Brexit regulations. Cambridge-based property and construction consultancy Ingleton Wood
Communities suffering from repeated flooding in recent years to be better protected through a new £100 million allowance Funding will be targeted at communities where 10 or more properties have flooded twice or more in the last 10 years This year £700 million will also be invested into protecting homes
The spending plans for the Department of Energy and Climate Change (Decc) and the Department of Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) reveal ambitious five-year objectives for their £3.3bn and £2bn annual budgets. Their goals, detailing policy priorities for energy and environmental activity between 2015 and 2020, will address the challenges
A new government hub in Peterborough has officially opened by Cabinet Office Minister Alex Burghart last week. The Hub is in Fletton Quays, an area undergoing a £120 million regeneration, and will house more than 1,000 government staff from a number of departments and agencies. Staff from the Department for Environment, Food & Rural Affairs and the Home Office’s Passport Office will be based there permanently, with room for more roles which may relocate to the city from London. Cabinet Office Minister Alex Burghart said: “It’s fantastic to be in Peterborough to open our brand new Government Hub. This is a very important day for the city.” “As today shows, this Government is investing in Peterborough and the East of England to create jobs and opportunities for the long-term.” The project is part of the government hubs programme, which has also seen the announcement of new hubs across the country including Glasgow, Belfast, Newcastle, Leeds, Manchester, Nottingham, Cardiff, Birmingham and Bristol. These hubs will support the government’s drive to move 22,000 government roles out of London by 2030, moving them into communities across the United Kingdom. Lord Murray, Parliamentary Under Secretary of State at the Home Office, said: “Being part of this new Government hub continues to reinforce HM Passport Office’s long-term commitment to the city of Peterborough. “Quay House offers brand new, purpose built, facilities that will help us to deliver increasingly high standards of service for our customers in the East and Midlands for many years to come.” To date, more than 900 roles have been relocated out of the capital and into the East Midlands and East of England, with departments including the Ministry of Justice expanding their presence there. The government will also launch a civil service recruitment campaign in the region in April as part of the drive to offer roles previously located in Whitehall to people in the East of England and East Midlands, ensuring the government is maximising use of the area’s vast talent pool. The new Hub is part of a £120m regeneration of the Fletton Quays site led by the Peterborough Investment Partnership and the site’s developer, Bride Hall, which is expected to generate over £340 million of private sector revenue for the area. Clive Anderson, Director of Capital Projects at the Government Property Agency, said: “Quay House in Peterborough is the Government Property Agency’s first new build Hub. It will provide inclusive, flexible, digitally-connected workspaces to support greater productivity, create cost efficiencies and enhance carbon reduction. This has been achieved by consolidating four remote sites into one new city centre building, with 1,000 civil servants now supporting local businesses. We are all extremely proud to deliver this new Hub in Peterborough, and to be delivering the Government Hubs Programme in support of key government initiatives such as Levelling Up, Civil Service Reform and Net Zero. I welcome our clients and customers to their new place of work.” Building, Design & Construction Magazine | The Choice of Industry Professionals
A new border control facility has been completed at one of the UK’s major ports, Harwich International Port in Essex. Operated by Hutchison Port, the facility will enable the smooth and secure inspection of goods entering the UK under the latest post-Brexit regulations. Cambridge-based property and construction consultancy Ingleton Wood was appointed by RG Carter on this Design and Build contract to provide Civil and Structural Engineering design services. The project consisted of extensive roads, hardstandings and new buildings to provide a significate increase in customs facilities at the port. The project will facilitate latest Brexit changes which require new border control checks on plant and animal products entering the UK. Mike Miller, Director at Ingleton Wood, said: “We are proud to have provided Civil and Structural Engineering services for the new secure inspection facility at Harwich International Port which will provide the very highest standards of efficiency required at this important checkpoint. “Ingleton Wood has a long-standing relationship with Hutchison Port and R G Carter, and the success of this major project at one of the UK’s busiest ports is testament to our effective collaboration.” The inspection facility took 42 weeks to complete and features state-of-the-art, steel-framed buildings housing temperature-controlled conditions to maintain ambient, chilled or frozen temperatures, dependent on the goods being inspected by DEFRA agencies. Additionally, the facility incorporates a newly constructed port exit road which allows freight to exit directly onto the A120, reducing congestion and allowing for free-flowing traffic. High specification offices and welfare facilities for the Port and DEFRA staff are also located on site. Ingleton Wood is one of the largest property and construction consultancies covering Central England, East Anglia, London and the South East, with offices in Cambridge, Norwich, Colchester, Billericay, London and Oxford. Its services include architecture, building surveying, building services engineering, planning, interior design, civil and structural engineering, quantity surveying, project management and health and safety. For more information about Ingleton Wood, visit www.ingletonwood.co.uk.
Communities suffering from repeated flooding in recent years to be better protected through a new £100 million allowance Funding will be targeted at communities where 10 or more properties have flooded twice or more in the last 10 years This year £700 million will also be invested into protecting homes from the Government’s record £5.2 billion investment from 2021 to 2027 Communities suffering repeated flooding will benefit from a new ring-fenced £100 million allowance designed to better protect their properties, the Government has announced today. The £100 million Frequently Flooded Allowance will improve access to public funding for these communities, which are often smaller areas requiring more complex flood schemes, meaning that community-wide defences are not always viable. The funding will be targeted at eligible communities where 10 or more properties have flooded twice or more in the last 10 years, helping to both accelerate existing projects and deliver new ones. It is anticipated around 80 schemes will receive support over the next four years. This allowance will be part of the Government’s current programme of investment in flood and coastal defences. The Government announced in 2020 that the amount invested in flood and coastal erosion schemes would be doubled in England to £5.2 billion between 2021 and 2027, providing around 2,000 flood defences. This year, £700 million is being invested from that pot and will better protect 35,000 properties, bringing the cumulative total for the first two years of the six-year programme to more than 65,000. Environment Secretary George Eustice said: “Flooding is a miserable experience, especially for people who suffer its impacts time and again, and I feel we have a moral imperative to help. “Our new Frequently Flooded Allowance will boost schemes in areas which are hit repeatedly and reduce the risk of flooding in the future. “This new allowance will provide extra support for these areas and forms part of our major £5.2 billion effort to build around 2,000 flood schemes by 2027 and level-up defences across the country.” Sir James Bevan, Chief Executive of the Environment Agency, said: “The impacts of climate change are becoming all too familiar both at home and around the world. “While we cannot prevent all flooding, this allowance will help better protect homes and businesses at risk from repeated incidents. “The Environment Agency has a successful track record in delivering flood and coastal defence schemes across the country, having better protected more than 314,000 homes from flooding since 2015.” Communities will be selected through the Environment Agency’s annual refresh of the £5.2 billion capital programme – which sets out the latest information on each project in the programme and the amount of grant-in-aid allocated to that project in that year. The latest investment builds on the Environment Agency’s successful delivery of the government’s previous £2.6 billion investment between 2015 and 2021, better protecting more than 314,000 homes, exceeding its original target. Thanks to a £2.6 billion investment, more than 850 new flood and coastal erosion defence projects were completed during this period. Over 580,000 acres of agricultural land, as well as thousands of businesses, communities and major infrastructure – including more than 8,000 kilometres of roads – also benefited from improvement schemes. Our flood defences recently protected around 50,000 properties from flooding during Storms Dudley, Eunice and Franklin, and schemes delivered in the last year are already helping to provide better protection for thousands of properties across England. Today’s announcement is another step to delivering on the ambitions of the government’s flood and coastal erosion risk management policy statement and the Environment Agency’s National Flood and Coastal Erosion Risk Management Strategy, which set out a vision and set of comprehensive actions to ensure that our country is more resilient to flooding and coastal erosion and climate change in the long term.
The spending plans for the Department of Energy and Climate Change (Decc) and the Department of Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) reveal ambitious five-year objectives for their £3.3bn and £2bn annual budgets. Their goals, detailing policy priorities for energy and environmental activity between 2015 and 2020, will address the challenges we face while taking chance of new opportunities as they arise. Both departments continue to act proactively with Decc saying it will deliver “an energy infrastructure fit for the 21st century” that offers value for money while helping families and businesses keep their bills as low as possible. Decc is also pressing forward with its international climate change action plan to protect the UK’s “long-term economic and national security”. Decc has already highlighted key technology to advance its endeavours with its immediate focus on the adjustments it has made to its Renewables Obligation (RO) and Feed-in-Tariff (FiT) subsidy schemes. These form a key component of the range of measures the government claims will significantly cut the projected costs of its environmental commitment on the average annual household energy bill in the next couple of years. Following a recommendation from Lord Oxburgh’s CCS Advisory Group, Decc’s plan states it’s going to explore its future approach while acknowledging the potential of government support on the development of offshore wind farms. It clarified this by adding that technology needs to move quickly and must be cost-competitive. There’s “untapped potential” says Decc for energy savings across the business sector, highlighting new opportunities following the Business Energy Tax Review. Decc expects to cut energy costs and save carbon to free up resources for other priorities with £295m set aside to do so. Standing in its way is cutting carbon from the UK’s heating supplies. £300m has been earmarked for local heat infrastructure projects between now and 2020 while an increase in funding will be freed for the Renewable Heat Incentive (RHI). Decc’s plan extends overseas as well as it continues to work with the EU on the development of the Energy Union with £2bn set aside to help the world’s poorest countries adapt to climate change through the International Climate Fund. Defra, on the other hand, wants to unlock the economic potential of the UK’s food and farming capability, championing the environment as it does so and helping communities to protect against floods, animal and plant diseases. Activity will seek to increase its natural capital while £2.3bn will be set aside to address flooding problems nationwide. A further £3bn will seek to enhance the English countryside under the Common Agricultural Policy while £100m will go towards a number of smaller, but no less significant, schemes such as restoring important peatland habitats, remediate contaminated land and increase woodland planting.
