News

J Murphy & Sons has agreed a compensation settlement with four sacked workers following a lengthy dispute. The employees – fitters and welders working on a refurbishment project at Ireland’s giant Rusal Aughinish Alumina refinery – were dismissed in 2022 after a meeting at the plant to discuss the non-payment…

Skanska stalwart Steve Holbrook has left the firm with immediate effect after almost three decades of service. Holbrook joined the Swedish-owned construction firm in 1995, initially as a sponsored student midway through his undergraduate studies at Loughborough University. He rose through the ranks to become managing director of Skanska Building…

South West Water has named the construction companies that will deliver its £2.8bn, five-year infrastructure programme up until 2030. The water company, which serves Cornwall, Devon, the Isles of Scilly and parts of Dorset and Somerset, has appointed six contractors to its AMP8 framework, which runs from 2025-30. The value…

Kier, Morgan Sindall and Willmott Dixon are among 14 contractors picked by the University of Cambridge for a £680m pipeline of work. The firms will carry out work over the next four years across the university’s operational estate, which ranges from Grade I-listed buildings to laboratories and research facilities, museums,…

Wates Construction managing director Mark Tant has left the firm after five years at the helm. His role will be taken over on an interim basis by Steffan Battle, former group head of pre-construction, who has been with Wates for almost 30 years. Wates did not comment on the reason…

Construction output rose slightly in September on the back of a strengthening market for repair and maintenance work. The latest data from the Office for National Statistics shows monthly output increased by 0.4 per cent in volume terms in September, with a 2.1 per cent increase in repair and maintenance…

A heavy-lifting company has been fined £24,000 after two of its workers fell from a crane platform. On 19 January 2021, two men assembling a crane at the Port of Blyth, Northumberland, for Osprey Heavy Lift fell from height when the platform they were working on partially collapsed, according to…

The cost of a new prison in Glasgow that is being worked on by Kier is set to be larger than the Scottish Prison Service’s combined capital budget for the next three years, it has emerged. Speaking at the Scottish Parliament’s justice committee on Wednesday, justice secretary Angela Constance said…

Taylor Wimpey expects to post an operating profit of about £470m this year, despite the slowdown in the housing market. A trading update from the company said its profit would be at the higher end of its previously predicted range, which it attributed to close cost control, including through “highly…

Profit has fallen by nearly £2m at demolition contractor Colemans. The firm’s latest accounts, for the year to 30 April 2023, show its pre-tax profit fell to £268,000 from £2.5m in the prior year. Turnover stood at over £12.98m in its latest year, up by 10.6 per cent from £11.73m…