News

Lancaster-based company and chamber of commerce member Askam Construction has been awarded a £3m-plus contract by the city’s university to refurbish Bowland Tower – one of its most distinctive and original buildings. Local suppliers have benefitted from multi-million pound investments by the university in new buildings and services over the last ten years. And the university has pledged to use local businesses where possible. Bowland Tower is located at the heart of Lancaster University’s campus and is a well-recognised part of its arhitecture. At 14 storeys high, the popular upper floors give spectacular views over both Morecambe Bay and the surrounding fells. Opened in 1968, the striking feature is now to have a complete make-over, with more than £4m being invested by …

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You may have started your farm off as a small hobby that you wanted to try out for a bit of fun and now realise you actually enjoy it and would like to expand, however there are certain things you need to do and purchase before you can look to create that expansion. Have You Got The Space – Remember expanding your farm means you need to have adequate space to house the additional animals and the land to be able to grow your crops. If you haven’t got this space you may need to think about moving to a place with more space or hiring out some extra land. Housing Your Animals – Whether you are looking to purchase more cows, sheep or other cattle, or …

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Preston-based Eric Wright Construction, a division of the Eric Wright Group, has delivered the second phase of a redevelopment project to form a combined secondary and primary school at St Mary’s Catholic College in Blackpool. In a bid to modernise the school, a phased demolition and refurbishment of the existing school has taken place – costing £22.8m – to create a new 1,220 place secondary school and sixth form. The changes to the secondary school will give students access to new facilities including cutting edge science and computer labs, 40 contemporary classrooms and a brand new fitness suite equipped with state-of-the-art exercise machines. John Wilson, managing director of Eric Wright Construction said: “We are really proud to have successfully delivered the second phase of …

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Construction union UCATT has welcomed the key findings of the Armitt Review.  The review, commissioned by the Labour Party and written by John Armitt the former chairman of the Olympic Delivery Authority, recommends that an independent cross party commission should be established to advise on major infrastructure projects. The Commission would agree on strategic infrastructure projects and would support long term Government planning decisions. Steve Murphy, General Secretary of UCATT, said: “The Armitt Review’s key findings are very important. If implemented they will reduce the short term thinking which is too often taken when considering construction projects.”

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A new report from jobs site Reed has revealed that the construction sector is the leading industry when it comes to creating new employment opportunities. The monthly job index revealed that there has been a 16 per cent increase in jobs vacancies year-on-year. Availability of construction jobs has seen 67 per cent year-on-year growth and three per cent growth when compared to the previous month. Chairman of the jobs group James Reed said that the sector is “leading the charge” in the UK employment market. The construction industry is always on the lookout for skilled workers, especially with a number of specialist professionals expected to retire in the next five-to-ten years. Government initiatives such as Help to Buy has also stimulated the industry, with more …

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The reason for safety procedures: 7 examples of why they are important Health and safety procedures, whilst at times seeming excessive and tedious, are extremely important to modern day businesses. Safety procedure are put in place to keep employees and customers safe within the workplace, and by extension, protect the company from liability claims. Here are 7 reasons why health and safety regulations are important to both employers and employees: 1. Reduce personal injuries Safety procedures are primarily in place to prevent accidents. They cover everything from ensuring wet floor signs are put out, to guidelines for the correct use of machinery. Because companies with high accident records are considered an high risk by insurance companies, having comprehensive safety procedures in place can save a business money. 2. Less damage to …

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Supermarket-built schemes may ease housing shortages, but will they actually be good places to live? In Streatham, south London, builders are hard at work addressing the capital’s dire housing shortage on a site next to the suburb’s railway station. Their employer, however, is not a housebuilder such as Bovis or Barratt but Britain’s biggest supermarket: Tesco. Bustling about in hard hats and fluorescent jackets, they are putting the finishing touches to a 60,000 sq ft Tesco store and 250 apartments that sit above, behind and beside it. Living above the shop is very much back in fashion as supermarkets lead the development of thousands of homes in their latest tactic to secure new sites. As a consequence, the race for market share among the UK’s largest retailers is …

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Wirtgen says that its AutoPilot Field Rover makes it possible to have fully automatic, stringline-free concrete paving for the first time, saving contractors time and money. The judges at the Bauma Innovation Awards earlier this year clearly agreed, naming it their winner in the machinery component category. When monolithic profiles such as concrete safety barriers or kerbs are paved today, digital terrain models are created and so-called stringlines are secured in the ground along the profile. During paving, these are used by the machine for orientation purposes – a very time-consuming method. The Wirtgen AutoPilot 3D control system comprises a computer that is integrated in the machine and an intuitive control panel. Two GPS receivers mounted on the machine communicate with a GPS reference …

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Construction companies might be concerned that the recent spell of good news in the industry has come to an end, after findings from the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors’ Building Cost Information Service (BCIS) revealed that tender prices saw a fall during the first quarter of 2013. However, construction firms should not panic too much, as the BCIS said that fall in tender prices was not due to a reduction in prices, but is in fact evidence that it is settling down at the higher level, which was seen in the previous two quarters. Peter Rumble, BCIS information services manager, said: “Latest data suggests tender prices have bottomed out and are anticipated to rise slowly over the first year of the forecast period, slightly ahead of building costs….

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The largest ever off-site building project for the health sector is nearing completion. People do a lot of things remotely these days. There are conference calls instead of meetings, assignments carried out at home instead of in the office. And then there are construction projects where the real action is taking place hundreds of miles away. This is the case at North Middlesex University Hospital (NMUH) in north London. Its new Women & Children’s Centre, due to open in November 2013, was actually built in York and has been fast-tracked into existence through the most ambitious off-site prefabrication exercise in the UK health sector to date. Covering 7800m2, the two-storey building and added plant room is the largest and most complex healthcare scheme ever …

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