Buildings

Gareth Lewis is chief executive of Mace Construct In April, we saw the most significant piece of legislation affecting the UK construction industry in a generation become law – the Building Safety Act. While the 262-page act represents a challenge to an industry that can sometimes be slow to evolve,…

Meeting the government’s 2030 deadline to build 40 new hospitals will rely on intense activity from construction firms. Greg Pitcher takes the programme’s temperature

Time flies when you’re having fun, but slips away alarmingly fast when trying to meet a target for hospital construction while battling the effects of a…

Adam Nicholson is group pre-construction director at McLaren Construction One area of the Building Safety Act with obvious potential to transform the character of the construction industry is the competency requirement placed on site operatives. The Hackitt Review described a fragmented industry of competing competency frameworks, and installers failing to…

Bill Hocking explains the firm's strategy, post-pandemic, to Lem Bingley, and gives an insight into the type of business the company is striving to be

We meet Galliford Try chief executive Bill Hocking in early April, in a freshly refurbished office that sits a short walk away from London’s Liverpool Street…

“This is just the start,” says Peter Baker, chief inspector of buildings at the Health & Safety Executive (HSE), on the Building Safety Act’s recent Royal Assent. “The act is very complex and very comprehensive,” he explains. “But it is primarily an enabling piece of legislation […] It will have…

With demand for data-centre capacity set to increase tenfold between 2018 and 2025, opportunities abound for contractors – whether it’s building new sites or upgrading existing facilities. James Wilmore looks at the potential and the challenges

Many of the shifts in behaviour triggered by the pandemic have brought data centres to…

Bill Dunkerley is a regulatory lawyer at law firm Pannone Corporate It has been almost five years since the Grenfell Tower fire, and the stark and tragic realisation that the existing system of regulation fell far short in ensuring building safety and the protection of people. While the clock has…

Sadie Watson is a UKRI future leader fellow and project officer at Museum of London Archaeology, and Gareth Talbot is principal heritage consultant at Atkins The archaeological stage of a building project can be viewed as just another part of the development process, but it offers untapped potential for positive…

Rob Hughes is head of  built environment at charging infrastructure provider Pod Point England’s building regulations will mandate electric-vehicle (EV) charging points in new-build properties from 15 June. The move is a world first, and forms part of the government's strategy to reduce emissions and act as a world leader…

Work at the £900m One Nine Elms site has dwindled over the past week due to a payment issue with the developer, China-based R&F Properties. CN takes a look at the history of R&F's projects in the UK 

R&F Properties entered the UK market in 2017 and currently has four major…