News Archives | Page 15 of 18

Housing Minister announces new funding

February 21, 2018/0 Comments/in Home Page news feed, News /by joannevickers

New funding to help speed up planning decisions and help deliver quality new homes has been announced by Housing Minister Dominic Raab.

The first wave of the Planning Delivery Fund, totalling £15.8 million, has been awarded to enable councils to process more applications, implement new reforms and also train planners to tackle the housing challenges faced by their local area.

This funding boost will support local authorities working together on ambitious new joint local plans and core strategies, which will engage residents on how future development will take place in their areas and outline the locations suitable for new homes where demand is high.

The funding will also support greater best practice and innovation within councils as they decide planning applications, resulting in more being determined over a shorter period of time.

Money awarded to bidders will also allow local authorities to access the latest expertise on design and town planning, driving up the quality of new homes built.

This first wave of funding has been split into 3 streams that will assist in delivering new homes across England: The Joint Working Fund (£9.4 million), Design Quality Fund (£4.82 million) and Promoting Innovation Fund (£1.07 million).

A total of 68 projects will receive funding from the Planning Delivery Fund across all 3 streams, from 2017 until 2019.

The launch of this fund will give successful councils a greater capability to implement the government’s reforms of the planning system and comes as the Ministry for Housing prepares to launch its revised National Planning Policy Framework later this spring.

Dominic Raab said:

This cash boost ensures councils have the resources needed to make quicker decisions on planning applications, delivering quality housing at a faster rate.

It’s part of our strategy to build the homes this country needs whilst also supporting residents to have their say on the kind of development that takes place in their area.

Air Pollution could cause a problem

February 14, 2018/0 Comments/in Home Page news feed, News /by joannevickers

The Considerate Constructors scheme have recently conducted a survey which reveals an urgent need for greater awareness and understanding of air pollution across the construction industry, and provides advice on tackling the issue.

Air pollution is a key concern for the construction industry due to the sector’s considerable impact on air quality.

•Less than a quarter of all air pollution-related deaths are in London, so it is clear that air pollution is everyone’s problem.

•Construction sites are responsible for 7.5% of nitrogen oxide emissions, 8% of large particle emissions and 14.5% of emissions of the most dangerous fine particles.

•The construction sector mostly contributes to air pollution through construction dust, plant machinery and construction transport.

•The industry is taking steps to reduce air pollution through air quality plans, emissions monitoring, dust management, low-emission plant machinery, delivery management and raising workforce awareness.

Air quality plans

At the outset of a large project or one adjacent to sensitive receptors, it is important to incorporate air quality considerations into the management and logistics plans. These can include the following:

•Where the risk of dust is deemed to have a negative impact on amenity, health and the natural environment – relative to site-specific factors such as proximity to sensitive receptors – an Air Quality Assessment may be required. This assessment should identify the level of risk to air quality during each stage of the project.

•Air Quality and Dust Management Plans should outline the steps being taken to mitigate the adverse impact of construction activities on air quality.

•In preparing Construction Logistics Plans, contractors should engage with their client/developers to demonstrate how they will deal with pollution issues during construction. This can include the controls and systems outlined in the above documents and traffic/delivery considerations.

Monitoring

It is difficult to assess a site’s impact on air quality if no monitoring is carried out, so sites could consider the following:

•Baseline monitoring of air quality levels in the vicinity of the works before the project commences will act as a reference point to identify good and bad practice throughout the project.

•Dust emissions should be monitored through specialised machinery, visual inspections, daily dust logs etc.

•Continuous air quality and particulate monitoring will alert the contractor to any rapid increases in pollutant concentrations, so that mitigation measures can be put in place.

While 84% of survey respondents acknowledge there is an issue with air pollution in the construction industry, nearly two thirds (64%) feel the industry is not doing enough to tackle this issue.

The survey, which involved over 600 respondents from across the UK and Irish construction industries, also revealed:

•91% said air pollution is a nationwide issue.

•88% said the importance of minimising air pollution is being communicated to the workforce on their site.

•62% said their site has appropriate measures in place to address air pollution.

•56% have a good or detailed understanding of air pollution.

•39% have an average understanding of the regulations surrounding air pollution.

Considerate Constructors Scheme Chief Executive, Edward Hardy said:

A staggering 40,000 deaths a year are linked to air pollution in the UK, and many people are suffering long-term health problems caused by poor air quality. As construction is a significant contributor to air pollution, it is essential for the industry to put measures in place to clean up our air by working together to reduce our impact on air quality.

The Scheme’s ‘Spotlight on…air pollution’ campaign provides everyone within the industry access to a practical suite of resources including best practice, guidance and case studies from Scheme-registered construction sites, companies and suppliers on how to tackle this issue, as well as guidance from organisations including the Institute of Air Quality Management, Healthy Air Campaign and the Greater London Authority.

We are proud to be at the forefront of collaborative efforts to tackle air pollution, having partnered with the Institution of Civil Engineers to produce Scheme posters for registered sites, companies and suppliers to raise the issue of air pollution to their workforce. The Institution of Civil Engineers has also recognised the value of the industry being committed to the Considerate Constructors Scheme, having highlighted Scheme registration within its London Air Quality Taskforce report published in 2017.

Professor Peter Hansford FREng FICE, Chair of ICE Air Quality Task Force commented:

The Institution of Civil Engineers is delighted to be partnering with the Scheme for the launch of its ‘Spotlight on…air pollution’ campaign. The Scheme offers a golden opportunity for the industry to ‘up its game’ in relation to air quality around our construction sites and is a key driving force in helping to address this issue across the industry.

For the full report please go here:

https://ccsbestpractice.org.uk/spotlight-on/spotlight-on-air-pollution/#Introduction

Sources: cscscheme.org

Inquiry into the collapse of Carillion

February 7, 2018/0 Comments/in News /by joannevickers

This week marks the start of a two-part inquiry into Carillion’s collapse after a joint inquiry was launched by the business and the work and pensions select committees.

MPs are keen to find answers about what role senior executives played in the firm’s downfall. The committees will hear from Robin Ellison, chairman of trustees of Carillion’s pension scheme and next week, Carillion’s former chief executive Richard Howson and chairman Phillip Green will be summoned, along with a host of finance directors.

New research has shown the firm was the main contractor on 57 construction projects worth a total of £5.7bn on the day it liquidated.

The information comes from construction industry analysts Barbour ABI who have accounted for major projects such as Royal Liverpool Hospital and an army basing programme in Salisbury worth £450m and £340m respectively. The two schemes which remain in limbo are two of ten projects which are worth more than £150m. The figures also account for the £1.3bn HS2 contract.

Analysts say Carillion were also involved in 16 framework contracts as part of a list of companies pre-selected or pre-qualified to undertake works for an organisation.

These framework contracts are not included as part of the final 57 projects as there is no guarantee that they had won any work from the framework.

Commenting on these findings, Michael Dall, lead economist at Barbour ABI, said: “Carillion were deeply embedded within the construction industry – they were the second biggest contractor in the UK by revenue. Our records show that they were the main contractor on almost 60 schemes worth a total value of £5.7bn. That is not to mention the plethora of other contracts where they were carrying out other construction roles.”

Yesterday, a further 452 jobs were lost as a result of the collapse of the company, the losses were on top of 377 announced on Friday.

A new house building degree offered by Redrow

January 31, 2018/0 Comments/in News /by joannevickers

Redrow, the leading house builder, in partnership with Liverpool John Moores University (LJMU) and Coleg Cambria, one of the UK’s largest colleges have established the UK’s first dedicated Housebuilding Degree. LJMU have also validated the qualification.

The first students to embark on the degree programme will be Redrow team members and they will start their course in 2018. Over the coming years Redrow hope to open the degree out to other house builders.

The three-year degree gives candidates a full overview of housebuilding skills; these include housebuilding quality, project management, health and safety, business skills, negotiation, right through to relevant aspects of law, mathematics and economics. Six modules will be completed each year by students.

Candidates will be assessed in a variety of ways including examinations, coursework and a final year dissertation project. In each year there are six block weeks of classroom learning which will be taught in partnership between LJMU’s Department of the Built Environment, Coleg Cambria and Redrow business experts with the rest of the contact time satisfied through virtual learning, practical site visits and tutorials. This means that students will be able to continue to combine working with Redrow with their studies.

Karen Jones, Group HR Director at Redrow and Trustee at the Construction Industry Training Board, comments: “The housebuilding sector has a real opportunity to innovate the way we develop and deliver skills training to ensure colleagues can fulfil their potential and progress in their careers. Part of that means working in partnership with further education and higher education providers to develop new pathways that enable recruits to develop the aptitude, attitude and strategic nous to deliver communities at scale. This is why we are working with Coleg Cambria and Liverpool John Moores University to deliver the UK’s first dedicated Housebuilding Degree. Participants on the course will be able to learn while they earn and develop the skills necessary to rise through the ranks in the housebuilding sector.”

“We feel it is important to share best practice with other house builders and we hope that in the future that the degree programme can be opened up to construction industry workers from across the industry. We believe this new programme will encourage people to enter the sector, as well as imparting crucial skills on those already in the workforce.”

Brian Berry, chief executive of trade body the Federation of Master Builders, said that while Redrow’s degree was a welcome step in the right direction, more action was needed from the Government to address the current skills crisis in construction.

“One of the reasons for the construction skills shortage is the fact that for too long, the Government and society more generally have held academic education in high esteem while looking down on those who pursue vocational education routes,” said Mr Berry.

“The Government must stick to its mission of increasing the quality of vocational training as it’s the only way we’ll improve the image of vocational education, attract more people into the industry and solve the construction skills crisis once and for all,”

Encouraging young people into Engineering

January 24, 2018/0 Comments/in Home Page news feed, News /by joannevickers

2018 is officially the Year of Engineering, and as such a new campaign has been launched to encourage young people into the profession and is part of a year long campaign to tackle the skills gap and widen the pool of young people.

The Year of Engineering will see government and industry tackle the major skills gap together, with Ministers from across government joining forces with engineers, industry experts and hundreds of businesses to change perceptions around engineering, as well as highlighting the scale of opportunity that careers in the industry hold for young people in the UK.

A shortfall of 20,000 engineering graduates every year is a serious worry and this gap will affect growth in one of the UK’s most productive sectors.

There is also widespread misunderstanding of engineering among young people and their parents and a lack of diversity in the sector – the workforce is 91% male and 94% white.

The pioneering campaign was launched this week at an Inspiring the Future event organised by Year of Engineering partner Education and Employers. The event saw schoolchildren meet engineers with the aim of filling the skills gap and changing misconceptions. Throughout the year, government and its 1,000 partners will deliver a million inspiring experiences of engineering for young people, parents and teachers.

The UK Space Agency will be supporting the campaign by funding a series of education and outreach projects designed to inspire interest in science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM).

Secretary of State for Transport Chris Grayling said: “Engineers – whether they are working on cutting-edge technology in aerospace, energy or artificial intelligence – are vital to the lifeblood of our economy.

“We want to show young people and their parents the immense creativity, opportunity and value of the profession. By bringing them face to face with engineering role models and achievements we can send a clear message that engineering careers are a chance for all young people, regardless of gender, ethnicity or social background, to shape the future of this country and have a real impact on the lives of those around them.”

Skills Minister, Anne Milton said: “I want to see everyone whatever their background, wherever they live to have a chance to get a rewarding career or job in engineering whether they come via a technical or academic route.

“The Year of Engineering gives us a great opportunity to work together with business to inspire a new generation of world class engineers. We want to build the science, technology, engineering and mathematics skills that we need for a growing economy, as highlighted in the government’s Industrial Strategy.”

Crossrail Chair Sir Terry Morgan said: “The Year of Engineering will be a fantastic opportunity to inspire others to take a fresh look at engineering and show the range of opportunities there are for training and jobs in this sector. We look forward to showcasing the role engineers have played in creating such an amazing project before the Elizabeth line opens to passengers at the end of 2018.”

Mark Richardson, Ocado Chief Operating Officer, said: “Encouraging more young people to enter the engineering profession is essential to ensure the growth and development of new technologies and businesses in the UK. At Ocado we build the world’s most advanced automated warehouses for online grocery, and we hope our involvement in this campaign will offer young people from diverse backgrounds a real insight into the exciting and rewarding life of an engineer.”

You can support the Year of Engineering by highlighting some of the many different ways that individuals and organisations can #inspireanengineer on social media – follow the hashtag on Twitter to find out more.

For more information please visit their website here

Lessons to be learned from Carillion collapse

January 19, 2018/0 Comments/in Home Page news feed, News /by joannevickers

Cabinet ministers have concluded a crisis meeting about keeping vital public services going after the collapse of contractor Carillion.

The construction giant, which provides services for schools, prisons and hospitals, has gone into liquidation.

Cabinet Office minister David Lidington said the two-hour Cobra committee talks enabled ministers to air any concerns.

Carillion ran into trouble after losing money on big public sector contracts and running up huge debts of around £1.5bn.

The government is stepping in to pay employees and small businesses working on Carillion’s public contracts and assess the distribution of contracts among other companies.

Carillion, the UK’s second biggest construction firm, was also involved in major projects such as the HS2 high-speed rail line.

The firm has 450 government contracts, including maintenance for prisons and hospitals, as well as dinners and cleaning for hundreds of schools.

It is also the second biggest supplier of maintenance services to Network Rail, and it maintains 50,000 homes for the Ministry of Defence.

Carillion has 43,000 staff worldwide, including 20,000 in the UK.

According to the Federation of Master Builders (FMB) the Government must learn from Carillion’s demise and assess its over-reliance on major contractors. Brian Berry, Chief Executive of the FMB said:

“Carillion’s liquidation is terrible news for all those who work for the company and it will have serious knock-on effects for the many smaller firms in its supply chain, some of which will be in serious financial danger as a result of Carillion’s demise.”

Berry concluded: “Carillion’s liquidation raises serious questions for the Government, not least about its over-reliance on major contractors. The Government needs to open up public sector construction contracts to small and micro firms by breaking larger contracts down into smaller lots. That way, it can spread its risk while also reaping the benefits that come from procuring a greater proportion of its work from a broad range of small companies. Construction SMEs train two-thirds of all apprentices and are a sure-fire way of spreading economic growth more evenly throughout the UK.”

UK sets renewable energy records

January 16, 2018/0 Comments/in Home Page news feed, News /by joannevickers

The UK broke 13 renewable energy records in 2017, including some especially notable ones.

The year 2017 has been the greenest ever in how the UK generates its electricity.

Renewable sources of energy produced more than three times the amount of electricity that came from coal.

More electricity was generated by wind than coal on more than three quarters of days in the year, and more by solar energy on more than half the days.

In March, the largest amount of renewable electricity was produced – 19.2GW.

In April, the UK had its first 24-hour period for more than 150 years without using power from coal.

In June, wind, nuclear and solar were generating more than gas and coal combined for the first time.

In December, the country generated the most wind power in a day – 281.5GW.

The figures have been welcomed by environmental campaigners, including Gareth Redmond-King, of the environmental campaigning group WWF.

He told Sky News: “A huge part of it is government support to install new renewables, offshore wind particularly, but also onshore wind and solar that’s enabled the industry to grow – and for much more renewables on the system.

“Of course, companies have had to adjust to provide for that and build those power stations, and of course the more consumers that switch to clean energy the more demand there is for that to be built.”

The UK has seen its greenest ever summer as low carbon energy production spikes and offshore wind farm subsidies at a record low.

The figures from the National Grid reflect a UK government commitment to reduce carbon emissions and meet its targets on greenhouse gases.

It has targeted 2025 as a date to end the use of “unabated coal” – coal from which the carbon emissions are not captured.

However, while the news is good on the use of renewables versus coal, there are less encouraging figures regarding gas.

This year, output from wind was more than from gas – a fossil fuel – on only two days, and overall renewables outstripped gas on just 23 days.

Source: Sky News / UK Construction Week

The UK construction industry now has more than 1 million small businesses

January 10, 2018/0 Comments/in Home Page news feed, News /by joannevickers

The number of small businesses operating in the construction sector across the UK has increased by 32,000 in the last year, meaning there are now more than one million of them.

Small businesses are generally defined as those with fewer than 50 employees. The latest set of government business population estimates shows that the number of construction companies with fewer than 50 employees has increased to 1,005,290 – up from 972,475 in 2016.

The data also indicates that these small construction businesses are responsible for turning over approximately £185bn a year, up from £172bn in 2016. The total turnover of all businesses operating in the construction sector reached £296.8bn in 2017, up from £271.9bn in 2016. Small businesses therefore account for 62% of the total.

The analysis of government data was conducted by software firm Clear Books, whose chief executive Phil Sayers said: “There are around 5.5m small businesses in the UK and the fact that construction firms account for one million of them is indicative of how essential it is for policymakers to ensure small construction firms continue to thrive. Be it a family-run construction business or high-growth housebuilder, small businesses play a huge role in society, acting as vital job creators but also contributing a significant amount to overall economic activity. Their role as essential service providers and genuine hubs in local communities and further afield is hugely valuable. Policymakers must ensure that small businesses are supported – their success and survival, in equal measure, is absolutely essential.”

The analysis is based on the latest set of government business population estimates for the UK, published on 30 November 2017. Business population estimates for the UK and regions provides the only official estimate of the total number of private sector businesses in the UK at the start of each year. These estimates produced by BEIS cover a wider range of businesses than Office for National Statistics (ONS) outputs, which report on VAT traders and PAYE employers.

Source: The Construction Index / Show House

Government publishes ambitious infrastructure plans

December 13, 2017/0 Comments/in Home Page news feed, News /by joannevickers

The National Infrastructure and Construction Pipeline, which sets out projects for the next 10 years, has published details of over £460 billion of planned infrastructure investment across the public and private sectors, of which over £240 billion will occur in the next four years. This amounts to a projected total of public and private investment in infrastructure of around £600 billion.

According to the report, this should give industry, and all parts of the supply chain, the confidence they need to support government and businesses with the delivery of future projects.

Since 2010 over 4,500 infrastructure projects across the UK have been completed successfully. These range from major, nationally significant projects such as Birmingham New Street Station and extending access to superfast broadband across the UK, to smaller local schemes that have made a huge impact on the communities they serve, such as the Nottingham Trent left bank flood alleviation scheme.

Over 1100 transport projects have been completed since 2010, with 13 priority rail projects completed or under construction, and 29 priority road projects completed or under construction. There is over £135 billion of transport investment in the pipeline and over 240 planned transport projects and programmes.

Modern transport infrastructure is essential to ensuring that the UK remains a competitive and strong economy. As well as improving capacity and relieving congestion, good transport infrastructure unlocks opportunities for regeneration and new housing development. The Government is committed to a 50% increase in transport investment from 2015 to 2020, enabling the largest rail modernisation since the Victorian times and the biggest road investment programme since the 1970s.

Over 1900 energy projects have been completed since 2010. Construction of the first new nuclear project in a generation is now underway at Hinkley Point C, and since 2010, over 30GW of new capacity has been added to the electricity grid, around 75% from renewable sources. Over 100 renewable projects are currently under construction across the UK, which will provide 5.6GW of new capacity and over £57 billion of energy investment is in the pipeline between 2017/18 and 2020/21. This summer, more than half of the UK’s electricity came from low carbon sources, making 2017 the “greenest” summer ever recorded by the National Grid, helping the government to meet its long-term climate change commitments.

Over 370 social infrastructure projects have been completed since 2010, and more than 735,000 additional pupil places have been created, with over 1.1 million homes delivered.

Andrew Jones MP, exchequer secretary to the Treasury, said: “We are backing Britain with a record amount of infrastructure investment as we build an economy fit for the future. That’s why we’re working with the industry to skill up and scale up for the challenges ahead. Investing in infrastructure boosts productivity for the economy as a whole. The scale of the investment we are talking about here will deliver a step change for our country.”

Transport secretary Chris Grayling said: “We’re undertaking the most ambitious improvements in our transport network this country has seen for decades. But we must also drive forward plans to ensure these infrastructure projects are completed on time and on budget.

“World-leading projects such as Crossrail, the Ordsall Chord and the huge investment programme in our major roads show that Britain can deliver on time and on budget, boosting jobs and growth and creating new opportunities across the nation. But we want to do better. This strategy shows the way and sets out our standards for how we will do more and better in future.”

Association for Consultancy and Engineering (ACE) chief executive, Nelson Ogunshakin, said: “In the run-up to the Budget we asked the government to support our sector by making a long-term commitment to infrastructure. We are delighted that they have responded to our call. The ten-year investment pipeline will help bring certainty to the industry and encourage our members to invest in their own skills and capabilities in order to meet this demand.

“We’re pleased to see a focus on productivity and encouraging the adoption of new digital and manufacturing technologies. As a sector we look forward to working closely with the IPA which will co-ordinate infrastructure delivery across disparate Whitehall departments. However, we need to reiterate our message to government that we cannot allow the final 15 months of the Brexit negotiations to derail delivery of this Investment pipeline. We need the current focus on infrastructure to remain, even if Brexit looms ever larger over Westminster.”

Please go here for the full report.

Source: Infastructure Intelligence

UK construction hits 5 month high

December 6, 2017/0 Comments/in Home Page news feed, News /by joannevickers

The construction sector activity in the UK economy rebounded sharply in November and came in at the highest levels in five months, according to a new report from Markit Economics.

The latest monthly survey of construction purchasing managers indicates that new orders and employment numbers also increased more than they had done in recent five months. However, the improvement in construction growth was largely confined to residential work. Commercial and civil engineering activity continue to decline. Business optimism has picked up from October’s near five-year low to its strongest rate since June.

Tim Moore, Senior Economist at IHS Markit and author of the Markit/CIPS Construction PMI®, noted: “UK construction companies experienced a solid yet uneven improvement in business conditions during November. Once again, resilient house building growth helped to offset lower volumes of commercial work and civil engineering activity. “Survey respondents noted that residential projects underpinned the rebound in total new order growth to its strongest since June, helped by strong demand fundamentals and a supportive policy backdrop.”

Construction companies indicated a moderate rebound in new orders in November, with the rate of expansion the fastest for five months. Anecdotal evidence cited a general improvement in client demand after the soft patch this summer. Higher levels of new work helped to support a moderate rise in staff numbers and input buying in November.

Duncan Brock, director of customer relationships at the Chartered Institute of Procurement & Supply, said: “At last the construction sector, has picked its feet up with the biggest overall improvement in five months, underpinned by a moderate rise in new orders, but the strongest since June. It appears that policy support and a small recovery in the UK economy has boosted sentiment and encouraged clients to come out of their shells and start building again. The housing sector was the primary driver of growth increasing at the fastest rate for almost half a year. However it is private sector companies that need to commit to big ticket spending, with commercial development still underperforming as persistent Brexit uncertainty continues to bite. Concerns over civil engineering in particular are also prevalent with its downward course the longest since 2013 and linked to a shortfall of new tender opportunities. Across construction supply chains, delivery times have been under pressure, as materials were in higher demand, while stocks remained in short supply. Lead-times from vendors have now deteriorated in every month for over seven years. Overall, the sector showed an incremental improvement, but business optimism was on the rise and up from last month’s five-year low. Perhaps the darkest days are behind the sector with fresh impetus on the horizon for the New Year.”

For the full report please go here