Author Archives: Charlotte Banks

HS2 offers “very poor value for money” after the cancellation of its northern leg, according to the Public Accounts Committee. In a report published on 6 February, the committee said that non-departmental public body HS2 Ltd and the Department for Transport (DfT) do not know the costs of the scheme…

The industry’s high suicide rate is prompting calls for mental health to be written into construction deals While working as a quantity surveyor, Marc Preston once witnessed a fire that caused millions of pounds of damage. Yet it was not the sight of the dramatic blaze that stuck with him…

Housing secretary Michael Gove has approved a controversial mixed-use tower in central London, set to be delivered by Lendlease. The 72 Upper Ground building, nicknamed ‘the Slab’, will stand 100 metres tall on a 2.5 acre site on the South Bank. Lendlease will replace the existing 24-storey London Studios, where…

United Living beat the January blues by topping the monthly league table for the first time, winning £184.3m of work. Two contract wins took the housing specialist to first place. The largest was a £160m contract to refurbish Huguenot House, a 1960s-built housing block near Leicester Square in central London.…

The leader of a Commons inquiry has called on the housing minister to respond to an independent review into the testing of construction products. Labour MP Clive Betts, chair of the Levelling Up, Housing and Communities select committee’s fire-safety inquiry, has written to housing minister Lee Rowley asking the government…

The Chartered Institute of Building (CIOB) has called on the government to progress higher accessibility standards in new-build homes. In its written evidence for a Department of Levelling Up, Housing and Communities (DLUHC) select committee inquiry into housing for people with disabilities, the body said the government “must prioritise” a…

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 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…

Subcontractor failures have pushed Blenheim House Construction into its first loss after 26 years of trading. The Surrey-based contractor made a pre-tax loss of £169,000 in the year ending 30 April 2023, down from a profit of £1.1m for the previous period. Company director Michael Curtis said the firm’s profitability…

Dragados has been named as the preferred bidder to build a £100m freight terminal in Lincolnshire. The Spanish firm was appointed to the first stage of a two-stage contract to design and build a facility for roll-on/roll-off (RORO) ships at the Port of Immingham on the Humber Estuary. The first…