Buildings

The Construction Leadership Council (CLC) has failed to deliver meaningful change, a decade on from its launch, according to a leading sector commentator. The CLC was launched in 2013 by the then Department for Business, Innovation and Skills alongside the Construction 2025 report aimed at transforming the industry. This week,…

VolkerFitzpatrick has been awarded a £19m contract to build a highway bridge over a rail line in Surrey. The Ash Road Bridge project will allow for the decommissioning of a level crossing on the A323 Guildford Road ahead of increased rail use on the North Downs line. The Ash Level…

Willmott Dixon has been appointed to deliver the £8 million next phase of a major regeneration scheme in Nottingham. The firm will be responsible for creating the Green Heart, an “ecologically rich area” on the site of a former shopping centre in the city’s Broadmarsh area. The scheme will see…

In a blow to the construction industry in the North East, it has emerged that administrators have been appointed to the developer behind a major Newcastle regeneration scheme. Ned Ailyan and Ben Stanyon of FRP Advisory were appointed as joint administrators to Quayside West Limited on 10 July. This places…

Legal & General (L&G) is dismantling new homes on a modular development in Bristol after identifying problems with the site’s foundations. The 185-home Bonnington Walk scheme at Lockleaze, built on land owned by Bristol City Council, was hailed as a winner at the Housing Design Awards in 2021. But customers,…

Bam has been chosen to build converter stations at each end of a £2bn undersea “electricity superhighway” between Scotland and England. The planned Eastern Green Link 2 (EGL2) connection between Peterhead in Aberdeenshire and Drax in North Yorkshire is described by National Grid as the UK’s largest ever electricity-transmission project.…

Homes England has said relations between housing associations and contractors are “increasingly difficult”, as each struggle to deal with the impact of inflation. In its corporate report for the year ending 31 March 2023, the government homes agency said the strained relations were characterised by builders increasingly seeking to share…

Labour MP Mike Amesbury has called for an investigation into “very concerning” cost increases on the A66 road project. The A66 Northern Trans-Pennine dualling project was originally estimated to cost £1bn – but the expected cost increased to £1.3bn in 2021, prior to the appointment of Costain, Kier, Balfour Beatty…

The government’s ongoing hunt for collapse-prone concrete in its buildings has uncovered further issues, with more than 20 NHS bodies now reporting cases. Last month, Construction News reported that the Office of Government Property (OGP) had been charged with hunting down dangerous reinforced autoclaved aerated concrete (RAAC) in state-owned buildings.…

The programme to restore the Palace of Westminster underspent its budget in the first quarter of the financial year, despite the urgent need to make the historic parliamentary buildings safe. A report from the Houses of Parliament’s Restoration and Renewal board on its activities from April to June shows that…