News

Lendlease is being pursued by a PFI company it formerly co-owned over alleged defects on five Lancashire schools. The schools – built from 2007 by Lendlease, then called Bovis Lend Lease, under the Building Schools for the Future programme – are the subject of two legal cases being pursued by…

Fewer office and industrial warehouse projects in the next two years will dampen demand for structural steel, according to the British Constructional Steelwork Association (BCSA). A survey of 750 built environmental professionals, commissioned by the BCSA and released last Friday, predicts structural steelwork consumption in the UK to fall from…

The construction sector in England saw a 6 per cent year-on-year drop in apprenticeship starts last year, according to the latest government figures. Figures compiled by the Department for Education (DfE) state that 24,530 workers started construction, planning and the built environment apprenticeships in 2022/23. This represented a fall from…

Parliament’s strategic estates team has alerted contractors to a £1.2bn maintenance framework due to open for tenders next month. The Parliamentary Construction Partnership Framework, set to run into the 2030s, will see companies work to stop the Grade I-listed Houses of Parliament from deteriorating. A prior information notice, released on…

Ardmore has blamed inflation, supply-chain failures and “some poor management” as the reasons it suffered a £10.8m pre-tax loss for the year ending 30 September 2023. Newly released financial results show that the main contractor’s turnover dropped to £403.1m from £435.1m – falling far short of the £447.8m it expected…

Envelope specialist Clarison Group has reported a £6.9m pre-tax loss despite growing turnover 45 per cent to £84.9m. The London-headquartered firm’s latest plunge into the red, for the 12 months to 31 December 2022, follows a £4.7m pre-tax loss in the prior year. Directors of the firm said a “substantial”…

Homes England’s interim chief investment officer is departing to rejoin Kier as a managing director within its Kier Property business. David Bridges first joined Kier in 2020, where he was chief executive of Kier Living until its £110m sale to private equity group Terra Firma in June 2021. He then…

The government expects up to £775bn to be spent on infrastructure and construction across the public and private sectors in the next decade. The long-awaited National Infrastructure and Construction Pipeline from Whitehall's Infrastructure and Projects Authority (IPA) outlines 660 projects over the next 10 years. The document was released this…

Tilbury Douglas has appointed Andrew Bull as managing director for infrastructure. Bull joins the firm from Arcadis, where he spent nearly six years as a senior partner. He replaces Paul Thain, who is retiring. Bull was Arcadis’ UK water sector lead and served as a board member on the Welsh…

The Construction Leadership Council (CLC) is in discussions about the future of its two recruitment platforms after their funding expires in April. Recent CLC minutes noted that funding for the Construction Talent Retention Scheme and Talentview was “proving a challenge” and that the group had “no mechanism for funding”. The…