Main contractor Laing O’Rourke has awarded the £1.5m furniture and fitout contract for the first phase of the £485m 3Ts redevelopment of Royal Sussex County Hospital in Brighton to Deanestor, one of the UK’s leading hospital fitout specialists. Deanestor will manufacture around 17,000 items of furniture for the project and
The Concrete Centre’s annual student Structural Concrete competition, in partnership with Laing O’Rourke, has been won by Ashley Andersen from the University of Surrey. The 2021 competition challenge for teams of engineering students was to design a civic centre comprising a library and council offices in a new garden town in the north west
Construction work is underway on a new mixed-use scheme at Tottenham Court Road Crossrail Station in London. Built by Laing O’Rourke, the Soho Place development will include a 10-storey building with retail and office space, coupled with a nine storey building split into three office floors above a 600 seat theatre. Contracts of
The managing contract to complete the troubled Royal Liverpool hospital project has been handed to Laing O’Rourke. Following the collapse of the Carillion, the project stalled, and is now hoped to restart next month. However, the appointment of Laing O’Rourke has raised concerns among the UK construction union Unite. Unite
VIP-Polymers Ltd has won contracts to provide tunnel segment gaskets for two major tunnelling projects in the United Kingdom and India. The global specialist rubber seals and gasket manufacturer has been commissioned to supply its latest cast-in gasket for the 12.7km Thames Tideway Central wastewater tunnel in London. VIP, based
Laing O’Rourke topped August’s contractor league table after it signed the £850m deal for the St James Quarter project. The firm had been lined up by TH Real Estate for the Edinburgh commercial development having undertaken enabling works, before finalising the main contractor agreement in August. That sole contract was
A recent piece of construction news; McMullen Facades has successfully earned a £15m contract for the prefabricated facade of the recent 41-storey London development, Two Fifty One. Originally designed by Allies & Morrison, Architect, and developed by Oakmayne Properties, the 41-story development serves as part of the greater regeneration of
The news that 200 jobs were to go at Laing O’Rourke comes only weeks after the company announced it was to sell its successful Australian arm as part of an overhaul of its business processes. In a bid to win more work while delivering a better overall service, Laing O’Rourke
Main contractor Laing O’Rourke has awarded the £1.5m furniture and fitout contract for the first phase of the £485m 3Ts redevelopment of Royal Sussex County Hospital in Brighton to Deanestor, one of the UK’s leading hospital fitout specialists. Deanestor will manufacture around 17,000 items of furniture for the project and will be fitting out 2,000 rooms across the new, purpose-designed 11-storey building. Deanestor has a long-standing relationship with Laing O’Rourke and architects BDP, and this latest contract follows their successful completion of fitout projects at Clatterbridge Cancer Centre Liverpool, The Grange University Hospital in Wales, Dumfries and Galloway Hospital in Scotland, and furniture provided for a number of Nightingale hospitals in the Covid-19 pandemic. Commenting on this latest project, Will Tonkinson, Managing Director of Deanestor, said, “We are delighted to be working once again with Laing O’Rourke and BDP, and on our 18th project for Laing O’Rourke. 3Ts is a major redevelopment project, which will modernise Royal Sussex County Hospital and provide state-of-the-art accommodation to improve the patient experience and support the Trust’s roles as a district general hospital, a specialist tertiary centre, a teaching hub, and a major trauma centre.” Stage one of the redevelopment, which is being fitted out by Deanestor, will house inpatient wards on the upper floors. The majority of patients will have single ensuite rooms with sea views. The lower floors accommodate outpatients and diagnostics services in spacious, modern surroundings. Public-facing services are located on the first and sixth floors and include main reception, waiting areas, retail units, café, and welfare and wellbeing facilities. The bespoke joinery package awarded to Deanestor includes a stunning 6m diameter main hospital reception desk for welcoming patients and visitors, and using natural walnut hardwood and veneers. 35 nurse stations and staff bases with solid surface finishes and wood grain fascias will be manufactured and installed across the building, together with 40 touchdown bases providing staff with convenient additional workspaces in the clinical areas. Deanestor is manufacturing hospital furniture for all consulting rooms, patient bedrooms, and utilities, including base and wall storage units with white Formica door fronts, adjustable shelving units – some with HTM71 tray inserts, and solid grade laminate worktops to patient bedrooms. The Deanestor team will be fitting over 10,000 individual products procured by the Trust such as rack storage systems, dispensers, clocks, noticeboards, benching, and white goods. Stainless steel furniture will also be provided for the catering areas on each floor as part of this contract, which is due for completion in Summer 2022. Originally established in 1948 to manufacture hospital furniture and fittings for the newly established NHS, Deanestor has the resources and expertise to manage 5,000-room hospital projects. It offers bespoke design services to meet specific project requirements and is responsible for installation to provide a seamless approach and a single point of contact for contractors, NHS trusts and other construction clients. For further information, visit www.deanestor.co.uk/healthcare, call 01623 420041 or email enquiries@deanestor.com
The Concrete Centre’s annual student Structural Concrete competition, in partnership with Laing O’Rourke, has been won by Ashley Andersen from the University of Surrey. The 2021 competition challenge for teams of engineering students was to design a civic centre comprising a library and council offices in a new garden town in the north west of England. The client has requested bids from design-and-build contractors for the construction of the building and its maintenance over the next 30 years. One of these contractors has commissioned an initial design for the new building at Porchester New Town, from a firm of consulting engineers. Entrants must respond as though they are the structural engineer responsible within the consultant’s team. This year, The Concrete Centre held a virtual prize giving awards ceremony via webinar, which took place on Thursday 19 August 2021, where the winners were announced to all delegates. The online event celebrated the winner’s highlights and achievements along with their fellow entrants and the judges. The 2021 competition attracted entries from across UK schools of engineering and three prizes were awarded. First prize – University of Surrey Runners up – Salford University Sustainability Award – Salford University Jenny Burridge, judge and head of structural engineering at The Concrete Centre said “This year’s project was a five-storey civic building comprising a lower ground floor library and four floors of offices. The judges were pleased by the level of design knowledge shown in the entries and the work that had been done to understand the requirements of the brief.” Ashley Andersen from the University of Surrey impressed the judges with his very high standard submission that included exciting ‘tree’ columns in the library which framed rooflights to allow more daylight into the space. Ashley’s drawings were clear and well presented. Daniel Dickinson from the University of Salford came a close runner-up with his submission which included long span post-tensioned beams. Daniel was also awarded the sustainability prize for his report, which included an embodied carbon calculation. This was Daniel’s second year in the competition, having won last year. The brief for the next competition “Structural Concrete 2022” was also launched at the event and is to design a school building within an existing school development in the suburbs of a large UK city. More information can be found at http://www.concretecentre.com/competition
Construction work is underway on a new mixed-use scheme at Tottenham Court Road Crossrail Station in London. Built by Laing O’Rourke, the Soho Place development will include a 10-storey building with retail and office space, coupled with a nine storey building split into three office floors above a 600 seat theatre. Contracts of £195 million have been exchanged between Derwent London and Laing O’Rourke for the development. “We look forward to delivering Soho Place, further strengthening our partnership with Derwent London. This will be a landmark project, sitting at 1 Oxford Street, and interconnected with the Crossrail upgrades to Tottenham Court Road, which we are also delivering,” said Liam Cummins, Head of UK Building for Laing O’Rourke. “Laing O’Rourke has the ability to drive certainty into the delivery programme through our in-house capabilities along with a fully integrated supply chain and advanced digital engineering and offsite manufacturing. The project is in total alignment with our 2025 mission to be the recognised leader of innovation and excellence in the construction industry,” he added. The construction team will concentrate on some challenging piling above and around the web of services and tube lines that sit below the site, with the who;e project due for completion in November 2021. “We are very excited about the prospects for Soho Place, which will be a great building in one of the best locations in London. We are also very pleased to be working with Laing O’Rourke, who we believe have the capabilities to deal with the complexity of the site,” commented Richard Baldwin, Head of Development of Derwent London.
The managing contract to complete the troubled Royal Liverpool hospital project has been handed to Laing O’Rourke. Following the collapse of the Carillion, the project stalled, and is now hoped to restart next month. However, the appointment of Laing O’Rourke has raised concerns among the UK construction union Unite. Unite will apply greater pressure to the client, the Royal Liverpool and Broadgreen University NHS Trust, to establish clear rules that will ensure proper union recognition and fair treatment of the workforce. “Unite is committed to ensuring that the Royal Liverpool hospital is completed as quickly as possible but that must not be at the expense of workers rights or to the detriment of their health and safety,” said Unite regional officer Colin Carr. Unite has already seeked guarantees from Adrian Kehoe, the trust’s chief executive, that the contractors will adhere to national industrial agreements that govern pay and conditions; will use local labour and suppliers; workers are directly employed; exploitative forms of employment, such as umbrella companies, are outlawed; and trade unions are recognised and are given proper access to the workforce. “Providing there is clear leadership from the Trust, Unite looks forward to working together with Laing O’Rourke to ensure that workers are properly treated and the mistakes made on previous hospital contracts in Liverpool are not repeated,” said Colin. “However, given the battle there has been to get the project restarted and for it to become a directly funded public sector project with the cancellation of the Private Finance Initiative (PFI), Unite will not stand idly by and allow construction workers on the Royal Liverpool to be exploited or for unions to be denied access,” he added. The concerns raised by Unite will be discussed at a meeting on Tuesday, the 13th of November, with the project being expected to be completed in 2020.
VIP-Polymers Ltd has won contracts to provide tunnel segment gaskets for two major tunnelling projects in the United Kingdom and India. The global specialist rubber seals and gasket manufacturer has been commissioned to supply its latest cast-in gasket for the 12.7km Thames Tideway Central wastewater tunnel in London. VIP, based in Huntingdon, Cambridgeshire, UK, has also won a contract to supply tunnel segment gaskets for a project to extend the Mumbai Metro. Matthew Levitt, VIP Technical Business Development Manager, said: “Our success with both projects demonstrates our ability to deliver a wide range of innovative products and technologies for supporting major water and transport infrastructure projects anywhere in the world. “These are exciting tunnelling projects that are vital to the sustainable development and growth of two great cities, and we’re delighted to be involved with them.” Thames Tideway Central is the longest of three sections of a 25km tunnel, due for completion in 2024, designed to prevent the discharge of untreated storm water and sewerage from 34 combined sewer overflows into the tidal River Thames. VIP is supplying its cast-in gasket referenced VIP028CI with patented corners to tunnel segment pre-caster Pacacar for the section, which will be 12.7km long, with an inner diameter of 7.8m. Supply commenced in December 2017. A consortium made up of Ferrovial Agroman and Laing O’Rourke (FLO JV) is the main contractor for the central section, which runs from Fulham to Blackfriars and will have 6,100 tunnel segment ring sets. VIP’s compliant compressible corner technology for cast-in gaskets delivers consistent load performance along the entire perimeter of the gasket. This eliminates the risk of high loads at one or more of the gasket’s corners during installation, which could contribute to segment cracking. The technology has already been proven on other tunnelling projects, including the 5km Shieldhall wastewater tunnel in Glasgow, commissioned by Scottish Water. VIP has been commissioned by J Kumar Infraprojects to supply tunnel segment gaskets for the Mumbai Metro Line 3 (Packages 5 and 6) tunnel, which is being built for the Mumbai Metro Rail Corporation, a joint venture between the Indian Government and the Government of Maharashtra. The project involves the construction of a 4.5km twin tunnel, with an outside diameter of 6.6m, requiring a total of 17,800 tunnel segment ring sets. Production of the glued-in gaskets selected for the tunnel has already begun at VIP’s factory in Huntingdon. This latest contract continues VIP’s long-standing position as a major supplier of TSGs in India, having previously supplied four phases of the Delhi Metro project and the Ghatkopar High Level Tunnel in Mumbai. Matthew Levitt said: “The gasket has been specifically developed as a modification of our VIP024 gasket to provide additional sealing assurance sought by project engineers as the tunnel passes under the Mithi River.” www.vip-polymers.com +44 (0)1480 411333
Laing O’Rourke topped August’s contractor league table after it signed the £850m deal for the St James Quarter project. The firm had been lined up by TH Real Estate for the Edinburgh commercial development having undertaken enabling works, before finalising the main contractor agreement in August. That sole contract was enough to send Laing O’Rourke to the league summit, according to construction intelligence provider Glenigan – the first time it has topped the monthly table since November 2015. Bouygues took second for August with a £492.5m haul across eight projects. Underpinning this was £236m of work secured by Bouygues subsidiary Colas Rail on the extension of the Midlands Metro. Galliford Try claimed third spot for the period with £293.9m spanning 11 deals, including a £175m regeneration scheme for Genesis Housing Association and Queens Park Rangers at Old Oak Common. Fourth-placed McLaren owed its place primarily to a £155m distribution centre development for Roxhill & the London Distribution Park, while Skanska finalised another of the month’s stand-out deals: a £65m package at Great Ormond Street. Top 10 contractors, year to Aug 2016 Contractor No Total (£m) 1 Bouygues 43 2486.5 2 Royal Bam 89 2389.4 3 Morgan Sindall 306 1845.1 4 Kier 294 1748.7 5 Laing O’Rourke 22 1734.3 6 Galliford Try 146 1726.0 7 Balfour Beatty 76 1621.7 8 Carillion 43 1402.6 9 Wates 127 1311.7 10 Mace 37 1152.6 League tables are subject to revision Top 10 contractors, August 2016 Contractor No Total (£m) 1 Laing O’Rourke 1 850.0 2 Bouygues 8 492.5 3 Galliford Try 11 293.9 4 McLaren 3 265.4 5 Lendlease 4 231.6 6 Balfour Beatty 5 181.1 7 Burmeister & Wain 1 160.0 8 Graham 6 124.5 9 VolkerWessels 11 122.6 10 Siemens Rail 1 105.0 League tables are subject to revision Its strong month kept Bouygues at the top of the annual contractor league, despite second-placed Bam closing the gap. Morgan Sindall climbed to third for the 12 months to August after Balfour Beatty slipped to seventh, while Kier was up two places to fourth. Bowmer & Kirkland was a notable mover, gaining three spots to sit 14th, while Multiplex went one better in rising four places from 19th to 15th.
A recent piece of construction news; McMullen Facades has successfully earned a £15m contract for the prefabricated facade of the recent 41-storey London development, Two Fifty One. Originally designed by Allies & Morrison, Architect, and developed by Oakmayne Properties, the 41-story development serves as part of the greater regeneration of the Elephant & Castle area of London, with much attention afforded to progress as a result. The development, for residential use, will see the company partnering with leading industry contractor, Laing O’Rourke will incorporate the development of an off-site modular solution which will be able to bring improvements in costing, quality levels and speed for the project. Works on the site by Laing O’Rourke have already been in progress ever since the final quarter of 2014, with cladding expected to start this year, April, which will then also open up the possibility for interior works to commence. It is hoped that works on the project will be entirely completed by the close of 2017. The production of glazed modules for the project has reportedly already commenced at the company’s Moira factory, which, upon completion, will be moved to the Laing O’Rourke facility in Nottingham for the final stages – incorporation into the pre-cast concrete cladding panels for final use. From here, the panels are to be dispatched to the development for installation at the point of requirement. More promising degrees of safety and efficiency are to be expected from the project, with the panels provided able to be integrated with the building bereft the requirement for external access equipment. In addition to the modules already in production at present, McMullen is also to assist in sliding screens and door systems for the projects, in addition to a sloped unitised façade system for the highest ten floors; the system is also to include photovoltaic panels.
The news that 200 jobs were to go at Laing O’Rourke comes only weeks after the company announced it was to sell its successful Australian arm as part of an overhaul of its business processes. In a bid to win more work while delivering a better overall service, Laing O’Rourke has begun discussions with staff over redundancies in order to help it “establish a more competitive business structure across its UK operation” while “ensuring its project delivery teams are supported by a leaner and more operationally-focused functional overhead”. The news is unsurprising given the revelation in its publicised financial results for the year up to March 2015 reporting a £53m loss. The company cited “cost inflation and delays” on its UK contracts. On announcing “circa 200 redundancies” the company said its overhaul “will result in a reduction in the number of employee roles in its support functions and a streamlining of its regional office network.” Certainly, Ray O’Rourke, group executive chairman, was guarded as he looked to the future. He said following the announcement of last year’s losses, “Laing O’Rourke will be highly selective in pursuing opportunities that align with our value proposition. We will focus on our engineering and manufacturing capabilities. We will create certainty for our customers from the earliest engagement.”
