Author Archives: Charlotte Banks

A significant number of councils will stop offering building-control services from April unless the deadline to prove professional competence is extended, the head of the service has warned the government. From 6 April, all building-control professionals must have passed a competence assessment and be registered with the Building Safety Regulator,…

McLaren Construction has been selected to refurbish and extend the former House of Fraser department store on Oxford Street, central London. McLaren had already started work on the project almost two years ago for client Publica Properties Establishment under a preconstruction services agreement. Erith is undertaking the demolition and reinstatement…

London Assembly members have urged London mayor Sadiq Khan to review Greater London Authority (GLA) housing funding agreements with Barking and Dagenham Council after a balcony collapsed at a Bouygues-built housing scheme.  Members of the assembly unanimously passed a motion calling for the review and also called on the mayor…

Police and the Health and Safety Executive (HSE) have launched a joint investigation after a worker was injured on a construction site near Manchester. Police and ambulance services were called shortly before 1pm yesterday (12 February) to the West Vale housing development in Oldham, which is being built by Caddick…

An ambitious regeneration project to celebrate the engineering triumphs of yesteryear has required some clever engineering of its own Client: Darlington Borough Council Total cost: £34m Contract type: NEC (through SCAPE framework) Main contractor: Willmott Dixon Architect: SPACE Architects Groundworks: Wyn Construction Piling works: Roger Bullivant Mechanical: Leybourne Urwin Electrical: KM…

Willmott Dixon has won a £55m contract to rebuild a police headquarters in Hertfordshire. The firm was appointed to demolish 11 buildings from the 1960s that are reaching the end of their design life, and replace them with an office complex for Hertfordshire Constabulary in Stanborough, Welwyn Garden City. The…

A major trade body has warned that new biodiversity net gain (BNG) legislation, which comes into force today (12 February), will deter homebuilding. Rico Wojtulewicz, head of policy and market insights at the National Federation of Builders (NFB), said some of the organisation’s members had told him that they planned…

The government has announced the “final list” of schools and colleges in England that will receive funding to remediate reinforced autoclaved aerated concrete (RAAC), but has not confirmed a total cost. Last year, the Department for Education (DfE) committed to fund the necessary RAAC remediation works, and yesterday it published…

ISG chief executive Matt Blowers has left the company after only two years in the role, with chief financial officer Karen Booth also set to step down in March. Blowers spent 26 years at ISG, taking up the top job from Paul Cossell in January 2022. He was previously chief…

Housing secretary Michael Gove has said he doesn’t believe a modern methods of construction (MMC) taskforce is necessary, after criticism that a promised £10m taskforce had never materialised. At a House of Lords’ Built Environment Committee session on 6 February, Gove said that “other issues have loomed larger” since the…