Author Archives: Megan Kelly

A new kind of educational qualification, the T-level, was launched in 2020 with the intention of attracting more young people into construction and similar fields. But the initiative remains divisive, as Construction News explores

The industry’s skills shortage has loomed large for years, but has become even more acute as both…

Businesses can improve equality by retaining some of the remote-working practices adopted during the pandemic, according to a panel at the latest Construction News Inspiring Women webinar

We are now officially more than a year into the pandemic, and most UK businesses have become proficient at using virtual meeting rooms, streaming…

Sir Robert McAlpine has been appointed on a design-and-build contract for the £72.6m upgrade of mental health facilities in Northumberland. Working for the Cumbria, Northumberland, Tyne and Wear NHS Foundation Trust, the firm will carry out upgrades to the Northgate, Ferdene and Bamburgh hospitals. At Northgate hospital in Morpeth (pictured),…

A contractor has been fined after a worker suffered multiple burns from being struck by a sheet of heated tin that was being used in an effort to control the spread of fire. Walden Builders was demolishing an outbuilding in Littlethorpe, Ripon, North Yorkshire, when an excavator struck a wall…

A manager at cladding firm Arconic queried the potential of aluminium composite material (ACM) cladding being involved in a fire that could kill “60 to 70” people 10 years before the Grenfell Tower tragedy in which 72 people died. Cladding firm Arconic marketing manager Gerard Sonntag made a visit to…

An Essex-based fit-out specialist has been put into voluntary liquidation. Construction News understands that directors of Billericay-headquartered Roseville Projects decided to wind it up last week, with business recovery specialist Begbies Traynor handling the liquidation of the firm. Roseville Projects started out as a decorating specialist, but expanded into fit-out…

Interserve Construction, now rebranded as Tilbury Douglas, made an operating loss of £108m according to its latest results. Interserve Group’s accounts for the year ending 31 December 2019, published this morning, revealed that energy-from-waste (EfW) contracts had once again produced heavy losses for the construction business. It booked a £72.7m…

The number of monthly construction administrations rose in February, Construction News can reveal. There were 16 administrations in the sector in February, according to data provided by Creditsafe. This compares to 12 in January. The latest monthly figure is well down on February 2020, when a total of 35 firms…

Construction output has returned to growth in February having been boosted by an increase in commercial activity, following a decline in output at the start of the year. A slowdown in the housebuilding sector due to bad weather and longer wait times for materials was offset by the sharpest rise…

With the government having spent billions on the coronavirus response, the pressure on megaprojects to deliver value has never been greater. Megan Kelly examines the influence of schemes such as HS2 and Crossrail, and asks how best to budget in a post-pandemic world

“The poor old contractors get killed over expenditure,”…