Galliford Try has bought Miller Group’s construction business for £16.57m.

Miller Construction's order book of £1.4bn doubles Galliford Try’s order book at a stroke to £2.8bn.

Galliford Try said “the tactical acquisition of Miller Construction is consistent with Galliford Try's stated strategy of disciplined and selective growth in its construction business, with a particular focus on developing our positions on regional and national frameworks”.

Galliford Try is now targeting 2018 construction turnover of £1.5bn instead of its previous target of £1.25bn. Its directors said they had got a bargain.

Miller Construction reported 2013 revenues of £409m and a loss before interest and tax of £4m. In the past year Miller Construction has restructured or exited a number of mainly loss-making contracts and is expected to return to profitability in the current year.

Miller Construction had gross assets of £232m at 31 December 2013. Under the terms of the deal, Miller Group has agreed to transfer Miller Construction with a nil net assets balance, including a cash balance of £23m. In addition, Miller Construction has a PPP portfolio with an invested value of approximately £14m.

Galliford Try has identified a total of £7m a year of cost synergies, the majority of which it would expect to realise during the financial year ending 30 June 2015.  Restructuring is expected to cost £4m but despite this the Galliford Try board expect the acquisition to be earnings enhancing in the year ending 30 June 2015.

Galliford Try chief executive Greg Fitzgerald said: "We are delighted to announce the acquisition of Miller Construction, achieved at a very good price and with no net cash consideration. The acquisition brings together two construction businesses with a strong strategic fit and accelerates our strategy of growth into an improving marketplace."

The news comes just a day after Galliford Try revealed that it had already just completed its best financial year ever.

The High Court yesterday ruled in favour of 14 solar and construction companies in their claims for damages against the government.

The action was brought following the 2011 policy changes to the feed-in tariff subsidy regime.

The companies issued the claim in 2012, arguing that the government had damaged their business by changing the law. The group is seeking £132m in compensation from the Department of Energy & Climate Change (DECC) following the decision to retrospectively introduce early cuts to the feed-in tariff just as the  fledgling industry was getting going. They claim it resulted in “chaotic trading conditions, shattered consumer confidence and thousands of redundancies”.

The Hon. Mr Justice Coulson, the High Court Judge on the case, said: “Although the entitlement to damages will ultimately depend on the facts, as a matter of general principle, the claimants have demonstrated an entitlement to damages assessed by reference to the loss of those possessions for which recovery is permissible, namely signed/concluded contracts and/or the marketable goodwill referable to such contracts.”

Nick Keighley of Solarlec, one of the claimants firms, said: “The good news is that small scale solar power generation is now on the road to recovery. The feed-in tariff is now stable and the costs of solar PV are slowly reducing, representing increasingly better value for consumers and a very cost-effective way of generating green energy.  Public support for solar remains high and the government now want solar to play a big role in our energy mix. The fact is however that the industry was treated very badly by DECC, and their actions in 2011 damaged the growing industry and severely harmed the ability of companies such as ours in a key growth sector from investing, innovating and creating much-needed jobs as well as contributing the UK carbon reduction commitments.”

He added: “2012 and 2013 should have been years for continued growth, innovation, investment and training in the solar sector. Instead DECC’s conduct caused us two years of cut backs, customer confusion, part time working, stress and redundancies. Many in the industry had to let staff go in the weeks following Greg Barker’s announcement. We asked for compensation to be paid to us to help us get up to speed again and to help secure the clean and affordable energy supply we need. We’ve just about made it through and our focus is now on investing in a much diminished workforce and planning for the future. If the Government really does support solar, it needs to compensate businesses for the losses it caused and move forward with the industry.”

The average size of the claims is £6m with individual claims ranging in size from £250,000 to tens of millions of pounds. The exact damages awarded will be decided according to the value of contracts lost as a result of the government’s actions. This is to be confirmed in the coming months following a submission to the courts by law firm Prospect Law.

The organisations claiming damages include:  Freetricity Plc, Ecovision, Solar Power PV Ltd, Solarlec, Crystal Windows & Doors, Breyer Group Plc, E-tricity, Foz Electrical, Viscount Solar Ltd, New Energy Solutions, Green Home Company, Evo Energy, Monitor My Solar, and Cleaner Air Solutions.

The Construction Industry Council has appointed Niall Lawless as chairman of its adjudicator nominating body (ANB) management board.

He will serve a three-year term and takes over from John Reilly.

Mr Lawless is a chartered arbitrator, adjudicator and mediator as well as an engineer. He is a fellow of the Chartered Institute of Building, the Chartered Institution of Building Services Engineers, the Institution of Mechanical Engineers and the British Computer Society. He is a member of a number of several adjudicator nominating body panels and a member of the Crossrail adjudication panel.

The CIC adjudicator nominating body management board is one of a number of specialist committees and panels maintained by the CIC. It looks after all issues and matters relating to adjudication that affect CIC’s members. This includes maintaining the CIC’s register of adjudicators and making nominations, overseeing the publication and updating of the CIC model adjudication procedure, and collecting and publishing data on adjudication.

CIC is reviewing the remit of its adjudications services and working on a new constitution for the ANB management board. With a new chairman in place, CIC will now be inviting its member organisations to consider their representation on the ANB management board, with appointments being made by the CIC executive board.

The White Rose carbon capture storage project at Drax power station in Yorkshie has secured a £240m grant from the European Commission on top of the UK government support already approved.

The White Rose project is one of Europe’s first carbon capture and storage (CCS) projects. It is being developed by Capture Power, which is a consortium of Alstom, BOC and Drax in cooperation with National Grid.

When built, the plant should capture approximately 90% of its carbon dioxide emissions, and store two million tonnes of carbon dioxide a year under the North Sea seabed.

The project includes the construction of a new 426MW clean coal power plant with a large CO₂ transport and storage network.

White Rose is the only CCS project in Europe to be allocated funds under the NER300 programme, a European Commission fund for innovative renewable energy technology.

The UK government has committed £100m to the White Rose project, along with another CCS project in Peterhead,

Energy secretary Ed Davey said: “The UK is at the forefront of developing carbon capture and storage, with excellent potential for storage in the North and Irish Seas, and the expertise in operating offshore to make it a reality.

“And as a world leader in the technology, as carbon capture and storage is commercialised Britain will be in first place to export this knowledge to a decarbonising global economy.”

Capture Power CEO Leigh Hackett said: “We’re delighted that the European Commission has made this important NER300 award decision in favour of the White Rose Project. In December 2013, we entered into the FEED contract for the project as a preferred bidder in the UK CCS Commercialisation Programme. The NER300 award represents another significant milestone for us in our development programme and an important potential source of funding for the Project, as well as providing a strong signal for CCS in Europe.

“We are well on track to demonstrate the key role that CCS can play in the future UK energy mix. CCS is an important technology providing clean, reliable and cost competitive electricity with the potential to contribute greatly to the decarbonisation of global power markets.”

EDF Energy has landed a research grant to explore how infrastructure can better withstand extreme weather and natural phenomena.

The Energy Technologies Institute (ETI) has appointed EDF Energy to lead a knowledge building project to improve understanding of the range of natural hazards to be considered during the design of high value energy system assets.

The three-year project will develop best practice to characterise natural hazards and seek to improve methodologies where current approaches are inefficient, ETI said.  This is to improve energy system infrastructure design. The project is intended to share knowledge of natural hazards across sectors.

The project is budgeted to have a value of £500,000 and is due to be completed in three stages. Phase one will focus on a gap analysis. Phase two will look at developing a series of improved methodologies from the gaps identified in phase one, and phase three will demonstrate how to apply these methodologies as well as developing a ‘how to’ guide for use by project engineers.

The project will complement and run in parallel with two other ETI projects. The first is a project to consider siting constraints in England and Wales for new power plant development. The second is a project to identify the requirements for alternative small-scale power generation technologies to address the energy system needs of low carbon electricity, heat, and system balancing solutions

ETI strategy manager Mike Middleton said: “This project is to build knowledge on natural hazards to inform energy infrastructure design. It also has cross-cutting elements which are relevant to multiple technologies which includes nuclear. EDF Energy’s capacity and capability in this field will help us to build a greater understanding of the range of natural hazards to be considered. This project reflects the ETI’s approach to integration and optimisation of the energy system including the contribution from nuclear. Our supporting projects in these areas will contribute to our knowledge of the sector, in which we will seek to build a robust evidence base to help informed deployment decisions to be taken.”

Wandsworth Council has approved plans for a new £40m bridge across the River Thames in London and is to hold a design competition to take it forward.

The new pedestrian and cycle crossing would connect the rapidly developing Nine Elms district on the south side with the Pimlico embankment to the north.

Its exact location is yet to be confirmed but the preferred options are close to the site of the new US Embassy.

The plan for the design competition comes after a Transport for London feasibility study confirmed the bridge would cost around £40m and is forecast to carry approximately 9,000 pedestrians and 9,000 cyclists a day – proving a car free alternative to Vauxhall or Chelsea Bridge.

The competition could be launched before the end of the year.

The bridge is part of a £2bn infrastructure package transforming Nine Elms into a new Zone One transport hub complete with two new Northern Line tube stops.

Wandsworth Council leader Ravi Govindia, co-chair of the Nine Elms Vauxhall Partnership, said: “This will be a new bridge at the centre of the world’s greatest city so the design standard has to be exceptional.  It will be a dream commission for the winning architect but to succeed they will have to meet some very unique challenges and expectations.

“The design will have to inspire and win the hearts of Londoners who are tremendously proud of their river and its heritage. It must work alongside the cutting edge modern architecture of Nine Elms as well as the elegant buildings on the north bank.  There will be engineering feats to overcome and the landing points on both sides must integrate sensitively and effectively with their surroundings.

“This bridge has the potential to become a powerful icon for the revival of Nine Elms which will help us bring new life, jobs and homes to this underused part of London. It would also help connect communities north of the river with these new opportunities and create a valuable transport link for our growing city.”

The bridge and other transport improvements will be funded from private Nine Elms developments and from growth in local business rates income. Once a design is in place Wandsworth Council will explore further funding options that could see the bridge built sooner. This could include sponsorship.

Lend Lease has followed the lead of Balfour Beatty by selling its UK facilities management business to Cofely.

Cofely, part of the giant French GDF Suez utilities group, has this week completed the purchase of Lend Lease Facilities Management (LLFM).

Last year Cofely bought Balfour Beatty Workspace for £190m.

The price paid for LLFM was not disclosed. Cofely said only that it provided it with a guaranteed revenue stream of £2.5bn over the next 25 years as it built up one of the UK’s largest portfolios of private finance initiative (PFI) service contracts.

The transaction will also give Cofely a significant, new lifecycle management capability to its business, which includes building fabric and major repair & replacement, it said.

LLFM currently provides a range of FM services across the UK and Ireland, with particular focus on healthcare, education, government and retail. The business has a number of large long-term contracts with clients comprising a number of major National Health Service (NHS) Trust hospitals at locations including Manchester and Leeds, local education authorities in Birmingham and Lincolnshire, HM Treasury and Bluewater Shopping Centre.

LLFM will be combined with Cofely’s existing UK business under the Cofely brand.

GDF Suez executive vice president Jérôme Tolot said: “The acquisition of LLFM reinforces our strategy to further evolve our business here in the UK. It continues to strengthen our service capability and our credentials as a leading UK service provider. LLFM has many synergies with our existing business and it will also provide us with the addition of a full lifecycle management capability. This will allow us to introduce and integrate new smart & low carbon energy efficient technologies into buildings for customers over the term of the contracts”.

Cofely has a turnover of £1bn in the UK and Republic of Ireland, and employs more than 15,000 people

Galliford Try is set to report record profits when it announces its financial results thanks to buoyant trading conditions.

The housebuilding and construction group has provided a trading update for the year ended 30th June 2014, ahead of its final results announcement, expected mid-September. 

Profit before tax will be approximately £95m, at the upper end of the analysts' expectations, with both housebuilding and construction divisions performing well.

Linden Homes, the house-building division, is performing even better than before the 2008 crash and the construction order book has improved to £1.4bn, up from £1.25bn six months ago.

Chief executive Greg Fitzgerald said: "The market continues to be good across all of our regions.  We welcome the government's continuing commitment to housing provision, and the focus of the Bank of England on maintaining stability in the housing market.  In addition the prospect of timely interest rate rises should support a sustainable market into the longer term.

“We are pleased to have finished the year strongly and expect to deliver another record profit.  With a solid balance sheet, minimal debt, a record landbank in housebuilding and excellent visibility of work in construction, we are starting the new financial year in a strong position, whilst recognising that challenges remain around the supply chain and converting outline planning permission into detailed consents."

A three-part documentary on the construction of London’s Crossrail tunnels starts next week.

Part one of BBC 2’s Fifteen Billion Pound Railway airs on Wednesday 16th July at 9pm and follows the construction of the new train tunnels and stations under London.

The first episode, Urban Heart Surgery, follows the team of workers as they drive tunnel boring machine Ada through Tottenham Court Road station within 800mm of the operating Northern line.

Episode two, Tunnels Under the Thames, features the Bermingham father and son team working on new train tunnels under the River Thames in southeast London. It also follows project manager Linda Miller rebuilding the Victorian Connaught Tunnel under the Royal Docks.

The final episode, Platforms and Plague Pits, tracks the team building the vast new station at Canary Wharf. The cameras also join engineers as they carve out the underground caverns that will become the new stations at Liverpool Street and Whitechapel. And, it follows archaeologists as they uncover a 14th Century emergency burial ground, established ahead of the plague.

Crossrail chief executive Andrew Wolstenholme said: “The documentary series provides a unique insight into the complexity and challenges of delivering Europe’s biggest construction project through the very heart of London. Every day people walk past our construction sites unaware of the maze of tunnels that are being constructed below London’s busy streets.”

House-builder Bovis Homes Group has increased its output in the first half of 2014 by more than 50%.

Legal completions in H1 2014 reached 1,487, which is 54% more than the 963 it built in the first half of 2013, the company said in a trading update.

The first-half operating margin is expected to be at least 15%, up from 11.1% last year.

Average sales price on legal completions was £210,000, which is 11% higher than the H1 2013 average of £188,500, driven by mix and modest improvements in house prices

A record investment of 4,597 consented plots on 23 sites has been added to the consented land bank during the first half of 2014 to maintain growth momentum.

Chief executive David Ritchie said: “Bovis Homes has delivered its highest ever number of first half-year legal completions, driven by the high quality investments made during the last few years.  This is expected to lead to excellent first half results with a material improvement on last year.

"Trading continues to be robust, further increasing our confidence in delivering both strong volume growth for 2014 and an enhanced forward sales position for 2015.  The group achieved a record number of land investments during the first half year in what continues to be an active, but orderly land market.

"The group's results are now benefiting from our assertive, disciplined strategy of growth through land investment and we are well positioned to deliver our 2014 targets.  Looking further ahead we are confident that further improvements in key financial metrics can be delivered and that ongoing land investment will continue to strengthen the business and further enhance shareholder returns."

Bovis Homes Group will report its half-year results in full on 18 August 2014.

Researchers at Nottingham Trent University have developed a new building material which is as strong as MDF but is made from shredded paper.

They say that the material could be viable for use as a new type of wall board.

The study, led by civil engineering lecturer Dr Anton Ianakiev and Dr Anthony Crabbe from the School of Art & Design, established a new, rigid composite material which is paper-based but also fire and water resistant.

As yet unnamed (shreddie board?) is made from a mixture of long strands of shredded office paper and a sodium silicate gluing agent, which protects against flame and moisture.

To make it, the two materials are mixed at a ratio of 80% paper and 20% sodium silicate and then compressed at high pressures at 90°C.

The result is a composite material that removes the need to recycle the paper and is affordable, quick to manufacture, competitive against chipboard and medium density-fibreboard (MDF) and can be moulded into various shapes, including structural panels.

Dr Ianakiev said: “It’s very important that the materials of tomorrow are designed to be as sustainable as possible. Shredded paper, which is widely available, could become a viable construction material at a potentially low cost.

“The fact that it can be used to make a rigid material that is fire and water resistant will surely make it very appealing to the construction industry.”

To further exploit the material’s high stiffness, the researchers moulded it into a ribbed pattern that greatly increased its load bearing capacity.

Dr Crabbe added: “We’re very pleased with the results of moulding this composite material which performs better than chipboard in respect of its strength, versatility and its variety of potential applications.”

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Postgraduate researcher Hooi Cheah, who worked on the project, added: “Recycled waste paper really could become an important future material for the construction industry as it is a more sustainable way of reprocessing waste paper than recycling it.”

First it was bricklayers, now it is plasterers who are proving in short supply as industry recovery feeds through to the later stages of the construction cycle.

The latest survey of SME building firms by the Federation of master Builders (FMB) found that skills shortages are getting worse as activity picks up.

40% of FMB members surveyed said that the workload had increased during the second quarter of 2014. Only 14% had seen a decrease. This positive balance of +26 percentage points is up from a balance of +17 points in the first quarter survey. This was the fifth consecutive quarter with a positive net balance.  

Further increases are expected. In the first quarter the balance of firms expecting an increase in business minus those expecting a decrease was +29 points. This has now gone up to +34.

One of the side effects is that skilled workers are in increasingly short supply. Plasterers, site supervisors and site managers are proving hard to find, along with bricklayers, who remain top of the ‘most wanted’ list. One in five builders also struggles to recruit plant operators and general construction operatives. Scaffolders remain the least difficult trade to hire.

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FMB chief executive Brian Berry said: “More than a third of construction SMEs tell us that they are struggling to recruit the bricklayers they need to stay on top of their workloads. Plasterers are almost as difficult to come by with 27% of firms saying they are having difficulty finding these skilled tradesmen. The results act as a stark warning that the government must not take the recovery in the construction sector for granted. Although this snapshot of small construction firms marks the fifth consecutive quarter of positive results, if we don’t have enough of the right people to complete the work, private and public projects could be stalled across the board.”

He added: “Looking ahead, construction SMEs are still hugely concerned about the impact of the government’s apprenticeship funding reforms. If they are implemented as proposed, most micro-businesses, which currently train two-thirds of all construction apprentices, are likely to stop hiring apprentices altogether. CITB forecast that 182,000 new UK jobs are expected to be created in the construction industry by 2018 so this is not the time to jeopardise the ability of small firms to continue their proud history of training apprentices. Not only would this be disastrous for the construction sector itself and the hundreds of thousands of young people who are currently seeking employment, it would also be disastrous for the wider economy which is largely relying on construction and housing to drive the recovery.”

Steelwork contractors are hoping for a pick-up in business by being able to offer developers reasonable lead times and competitive pricing.

While other construction materials are facing shortages and consequent steep price increases, structural steelwork prices are increasing more moderately and steadily, according to the British Constructional Steelwork Association. This is making steelwork relatively more competitive as a framing material, according to BCSA director general Sarah McCann-Bartlett.

Ms McCann-Bartlett said that structural steelwork contractors in the UK have sufficient capacity to meet increased demand from the construction industry.

“Our members are now seeing stronger demand for constructional steelwork, and with improved prospects for construction in 2014 and beyond, BCSA members have reviewed their capacity and capability and are confident they can meet this demand,” she said.

“Unlike other construction products, where we’re seeing shortages, long lead times and price spikes, demand and supply in the structural steel market is more balanced. While we do expect to see a firming of prices, this will be relatively slow and steady,” she said.

Recent cost modelling by Gardner & Theobald found that the cost of steel framed buildings was competitive with concrete. The study, carried out in the first quarter of 2014, showed that on a like for like basis, the frame and upper floor costs for steel framed options can be up to 9% lower than for concrete.

The BCSA says that “market research shows that steel remains the framing material of choice for specifiers”, with a market share of around 70% for multi-storey buildings and 95% for single-storey buildings.

Businesses are facing the risk of billions of pounds of additional costs from a recent legal ruling relating to holiday pay.

And it has at least one civil engineering contractor fearing for its very existence.

Holiday pay in the UK is currently calculated on the basis of a ‘week’s pay’ – based on basic salary and excluding payments such as working allowances, expenses, overtime, commission and bonus payments, all of which refer to specific work done by someone while performing their duties.

A recent European Court of Justice (ECJ) judgment redefined holiday pay to include an allowance for commission, despite the fact that commission is paid on sales made and the employee would not have delivered those sales while on holiday. 

If liabilities on holiday pay are backdated, individual firms may face massive unexpected bills.

Civil engineering contractor Owen Pugh Group, a medium-sized business based in Northumberland, fears it is under threat. Chairman John Dickson said: “Changes to the method of calculating holiday pay in the future have cost and administration implications which are difficult but bearable. But if these changes are applied retrospectively, whether over six or 16 years, they are little short of catastrophic.”

He added: “Like many medium-sized, privately-owned businesses, we will struggle to survive. If it happens, all I can see for the next few years is a collapse in investment, spiralling job losses and a huge rise in insolvencies.”

The issue has been picked up the lobby group Confederation of British Industries (CBI). Other medium-sized businesses have also told the CBI that backdated claims could push their otherwise profitable businesses into insolvency.

CBI deputy director-general Katja Hall said: “Backdated claims on holiday pay could lead to bills of millions of pounds for each business, and ultimately threaten their very existence.

“Businesses that have done the right thing and fully complied with UK law suddenly face the threat of substantial additional costs. And the companies most at risk are in vital sectors for our economy, such as manufacturing, construction and civil engineering.

“Moving the legal goalposts in this way is unacceptable. Although most businesses believe we are better off in a reformed EU, there is a real danger of expansive decisions being made by the European Court of Justice on the UK labour market. As part of an EU reform programme, this has to be addressed and it’s time to put a stop to back-door EU employment law being made.

“We need the UK government to take a strong stand and do all it can to remove this threat. Otherwise we face the very real prospect of successful firms in this country going out of business, with the jobs they provide going too.”

The ECJ’s ruling in the Lock v British Gas Trading Limited case means that, depending on the subsequent ruling from UK courts, employers may have to change the way they calculate holiday pay to take account of commission payments and could face retrospective claims relating to earlier periods of annual leave, with the potential of going back six years or possibly even as far back as 1998.

UK businesses are currently facing an anxious wait to see how the UK courts interpret the ECJ decision on commission, and on the outcome of related tribunals on how holiday pay should be calculated to account for overtime. Other related issues such as backdated tax and pension contributions could also be raised.

The CBI is calling on the government to defend the existing UK law as these rulings go beyond what could have been foreseen when the working time rules were introduced. The EU treaty is supposed to leave matters of pay with member states, it says.

Cases on commission and overtime are currently proceeding, meaning major uncertainty for businesses. The CBI is calling for the government to use its powers under British law to limit the retrospective liability firms’ face. 

Aedas, a leading firm of architects created by the 2002 merger of Abbey Holford Rowe in the UK and LPT Architects in Hong Kong, is demerging and returning to its constituent parts.

The eight UK offices and the offices in Russia, Poland and Kazakhstan will now operate under the name AHR.

The 13 offices in China, southeast Asia, the Middle East and the USA will continue to operate under the Aedas brand.

The board of Aedas said in a statement that “the demerger will allow both companies to focus on their respective strengths and will enable them to grow the businesses in different directions”.

The intention is that both groups will continue to work together on projects in the future.

Aedas chairman Keith Griffiths said: “This move reinforces Aedas primary aim to provide international design services to the major world cities through our network of 13 offices and 1,400 staff.”

Brian Johnson, chairman of the new UK practice, said: “We believe that this is a very natural evolution based on how the practice has been operating in recent years and to all intents and purposes there will be no change for our clients or our 450 staff.”

The UK’s biggest building materials group has been put up for sale just 18 months after its creation.

Building materials giants Lafarge of France and Holcim of Switzerland have announced merger plans that include the sale of the UK company Lafarge Tarmac of which Lafarge owns 50%.

This suits the other joint venture partner, Anglo American, down to the ground because it has long been looking to get out of building materials. To ease the way for a sale of Lafarge Tarmac, Anglo American said that it would sell its half share to Lafarge for £885m (US $1.5bn) in cash. Allowing room for negotiation, and Lafarge/Holcim being more flexible, that puts an approximate price tag of at least £1.6bn on Lafarge Tarmac. The vendors will likely seek a premium on top of this, since a single buyer would have total control of the business, which might be considered more than twice as valuable as a 50% stake. With a control premium, the price could be more like £2bn.

Lafarge and Holcim announced that they were in merger talks in April.

The sale of Lafarge Tarmac is one of a number of remedies that they have now set out in a bid to satisfy competition authorities.

Approximately 20% of the €32bn revenues of the future LafargeHolcim group will be in Europe. To satisfying the European Commission regulators, they are planning to sell:

• the UK: Lafarge Tarmac assets with the possible exception of one cement plant
• Austria: Lafarge’s Mannersdorf cement plant
• France: Holcim’s assets in metropolitan France, except for its Altkirch cement plant and aggregates and readymix sites in the Haut-Rhin market; Lafarge’s assets on Reunion island, except for its shareholding in Ciments de Bourbon
• Germany: Lafarge’s assets
• Hungary: Holcim’s operating assets
• Romania: Lafarge’s assets
• Serbia: Holcim’s assets

In other countries the planned disposals are:

• Canada: Holcim’s assets
• Mauritius: Holcim’s assets
• The Philippines and Brazil: divestment details to be announced.

Lafarge Tarmac in the UK was created in January 2013. It has 330 sites across the country and 6,600 employees. It provides aggregates, asphalt, cement, readymix concrete, lime and powders and contracting services. It has gross assets of £2.86bn, including goodwill and made a pre-tax loss of £66m in its first year.

Comment: Potential buyers?

UK competition regulators required certain assets to be sold as a condition for the creation of Lafarge Tarmac. This created an opportunity for Indian steel magnate Lakshmi Mittal to enter the cement and concrete business. For £285m, he bought five quarries, a cement plant and 172 readymix concrete plants, among other things, and created Hope Construction Materials. His son-in-law, Amit Bhatia, is chairman of Hope.

While Mr Mittal undoubtedly has the finance and ambition required to acquire Lafarge Tarmac should he wish, it would mean a whole new reorganisation of the entire UK industry.

Breedon Aggregates, created in 2010 by Peter Tom and Simon Vivian, former bosses of Aggregate Industries and Hanson respectively, is also acquisitive and ambitious. While its leadership has the experience to front a deal for Lafarge Tarmac, the £1.5bn price tag is way beyond anything Breedon has countenanced before.

Another prospect is an institutional investor stepping in, rather than a strategic one, with the prospect of further upheaval five years down the line.

Whatever happens, as Sam Cooke sang in another context, a change is gonna come.

Nearly a half of new home sales by Taylor Wimpey are now helped by public subsidy from the taxpayer.

During the first half of 2104, Taylor Wimpey completed 4,755 private homes were private completions. Approximately 2,000 of these were sold with Help to Buy equity loans.

Including housing association jobs and joint ventures, Taylor Wimpey completed 5,766 new homes in the first half of 2014, an 11% increase on the first half of 2013.

Average private sale price was up 9% to £224,000.

Although some build costs are increasing in certain trades and materials, the company said in a trading update, “these are being maintained at manageable levels”. As a consequence, operating profit margin for the first half of 2014 is expected to be 16%, up from 13.1% for the same period last year.

“We believe that the market risk in the short to medium term has reduced in the first half of 2014 due to a general underlying economic improvement, the extension of Help to Buy to 2020 and balanced prudential measures to reduce long term risk,” the board said.

Half-year results will be announced on 30 July.

Infrastructure construction projects account for much of the £6bn of projects that have today been allocated £2bn of support from the government’s local growth fund.

This is the first round of what the government is calling ‘growth deals’. These provide funds to local enterprise partnerships (LEPs), which are partnerships between local authorities and businesses, or projects that benefit the local area and economy. LEPs bid for the money in competition with each other. The government puts in a third of the money; the LEP finds the other two thirds. (It’s an old Heseltine idea.)

The government is planning to put £12bn towards these competitions. Today it has announced the Local Growth Fund for 2015 to 2016, which sets out where the first £2bn is going.

Projects winning backing include more than 150 roads, 150 housing developments and 20 railways stations.

Specifically, they include:

• £23m for a new road tunnel linking Swindon to nearby Wichelstowe, opening up a new site for thousands of homes
• funding for Birmingham to help the city make the most of HS2 – including improving connection to the Birmingham Curzon Street station so that the area can maximise the benefits in terms of investment, jobs and skills
• £18m to revamp the Metrolink transport system in Manchester, which will get 12 new trams and overhauled stations. This is part of a £50m transport package in Greater Manchester
• £55m for London’s Skills Capital programme, a Glass Academy in Sheffield to train people to work in the city’s glassworks and an Oil & Gas Academy in the Tees Valley
• creation of a new National Agri-Food Campus in York
• funding for broadband networks in areas where provision is not currently available, such as remote areas of the north east.

Prime minister David Cameron said: “Growth deals are a crucial part of our long-term plan to secure Britain’s future. For too long our economy has been too London-focused and too centralised. Growth deals will help change all that. They are about firing up our great cities, towns and counties so they can become powerhouses.

“By trusting local people, backing business and investing in infrastructure, skills and housing, we can create thousands of new jobs. And that means more economic security, peace of mind and a brighter future for hardworking people across the country.”

Lord Heseltine, who provided advice on the initiative, said: “In every experience I have had of backing local people, local experience and local initiative the results have seriously exceeded expectations. Today’s announcement is a giant step in the rebalancing of our economy.”

Confederation of British Industries deputy director-general Katja Hall said: “Businesses and local authorities have been working hard to develop their plans for growth and it’s great to see that hard work starting to bear fruit in this announcement. Giving funding to the people best placed to invest it will help unlock the potential of our towns and cities – but this cannot be a one-off.

“Growing our local economies requires bold thinking, big ideas and a commitment to stay the course. We need to stick with what’s working and see all political parties supporting these projects.”

A roofing company has been fined £17,500 after a worker was hospitalised for five days from a fall.

Reactive Roofing (UK) Ltd from Potters Bar was prosecuted by the Health & Safety Executive (HSE) after an investigation found that it failed to provide safety measures to protect workers from falls.

A 23-year-old worker from Dagenham was repairing a fragile asbestos cement roof at a business park in Hoddesdon on 3 May 2011 when it gave way beneath him.

He sustained serious fractures to his skull and an eye socket, a fractured wrist, major bruising to his back, a gash to his left leg and cuts to his head which required stitches.

Stevenage Magistrates’ Court heard on Friday (4th July) that workers were relying solely on scaffold boards placed over the fragile asbestos roof sheets while overlaying the roof with wooden frames made of battens and covered in tarpaulin. While installing the final frame, the worker walked across an unprotected area of the roof and it gave way beneath him.

HSE told the court that using scaffold boards in isolation was inherently unsafe as workers would have been at risk during the placement and removal of the boards, as well as during the installation of the wooden frames. This meant that the workers were at risk of falling through the roof at several points during the project.

Reactive Roofing had not fully assessed the risks and should have ensured that suitable equipment, such as platforms, coverings or guard rails was installed.

Reactive Roofing (UK) Ltd of Hatfield Road, Potters Bar, Herts, was fined a total of £17,500 and ordered to pay costs of £7,077 after pleading guilty to two breaches of the Work at Height Regulations 2005.

HSE inspector Paul Hoskins said after the hearing: “Reactive Roofing’s workers were exposed to unacceptable risks of falling from the roof or through the fragile asbestos sheets for several days. Their failures led to a young man being severely injured but could very easily have resulted in a fatality. Simple measures such as using barriers to prevent access to fragile areas or safely installing adequate coverings over the fragile roof sheets would have meant workers were protected.

“It is essential that the hazards associated with working at height are recognised and understood by those carrying out the work. You should never work on a fragile roof without a safe system of work.”

Trades unions have voiced their criticism of the Construction Workers Compensation Scheme for being unilateral, in direct contravention of the recommendations of a committee of MPs.

The House of Commons Scottish affairs select committee, which has done much to shine a light on the scandal over the past couple of years, said that restitution “must not be left just to the companies themselves to determine what this should be, but it must be agreed after negotiations with the relevant trade unions and representatives of blacklisted workers”. 

No agreement was reached with the trade unions or representatives of blacklisted workers prior to the scheme’s launch last Friday (4^th July). Representatives of the eight companies behind the scheme sought the support of the construction unions but failed to get it. They went ahead with the scheme regardless and determined their own settlement terms.

The High Court case brought on behalf of hundreds of blacklisted workers is scheduled to begin on Thursday this week (10th July).

Ucatt general secretary Steve Murphy said: “Blacklisting companies have ignored MPs and ignored blacklisted workers in launching this scheme. This is simply a cynical gimmick before the High Court case begins.”

The blacklisting construction companies behind the TCWCS are; Balfour Beatty, Carillion, Costain, Kier, Laing O’Rourke, Sir Robert McAlpine, Skanska UK and Vinci.

The construction unions also feel that the money on offer is inadequate, given the size of these companies. The maximum pay-out is £4,000 for fast-track applicants, rising to £20,000 to the most affected victims of the Consulting Association blacklist – which ran from 1993 to 2008 years.

To get compensation, victims must drop their legal action. Union leaders are urging members to hold firm, telling them that they are likely to get a bigger sum through the courts.

GMB national officer Justin Bowden said: "To try and present such a grossly inadequate sum of money as meaningful compensation for the devastating damage inflicted on the livelihoods and families of the thousands of people they blacklisted, and for the gross invasion of privacy they committed, suggests they are sorry only that they got caught and saw their corporate reputations dragged through the mud, nothing more.

“These construction companies lied and spied and this is the paltry price they place on 15 years of blacklisting. Their cut price compensation offer is not an act of genuine contrition, it is a PR stunt. Legally represented blacklisted workers are likely to get a much better settlement through the Courts.

“The eight companies between them have a turnover of over £34 billion and pre-tax profits of £1.04 billion, they can afford properly to own up, clean up and pay up."

Demolition is about to start on the first of Battersea Power Station’s four chimneys, ahead of its reconstruction.

The existing chimneys are not structurally safe but are such a fixture of the London skyline that they are being rebuilt as part of the £8bn redevelopment of the power station site.

Next week sees specialist contractor Beroa Bierrum start work demolishing the southwest chimney.

A circular rig that will carry workers and equipment has been built around the chimney. It will slowly climb to the top of the chimney next week. On its way up, Beroa Bierrum will record details of the chimney in its current form. The dismantling of the chimney by four hydraulic jaws attached to the rig is expected to begin in mid-July.

The chimney debris will be funnelled down a chute in the centre of the chimney, collected and recycled. Several different on-site uses for the material are being explored, including reuse as artwork.

Once the chimney has been fully dismantled, it will be rebuilt from the bottom using the same materials as the original. It will take approximately five months to dismantle, and about six months to fully rebuild the chimney to its height of approximately 50 metres.

Once the southwest chimney has been reconstructed back up to a height of 25 metres above the brick washtower, work will start simultaneously to dismantle and reconstruct the three remaining chimneys. All four chimneys are expected to be fully reconstructed by early 2016.

Paint scrapings have been taken to ensure that the new chimneys will be visually identical to the chimneys when they were first built. The developer says that the new chimneys will consist of the same materials as the originals, but with more modern steel reinforcements within the concrete to provide a more permanent solution to their conservation than simply refurbishing them. For each chimney approximately 600 tonnes of concrete will removed and a similar volume used in the rebuild.

Battersea Power Station Development Company chief operating officer Philip Gullett said: “The four iconic chimneys are not only one of the most distinctive features of the London skyline; they are the very DNA of this historical building.  Today, we are a step closer to the start of this vital restoration work to safeguard the chimneys and the power station building itself for future generations.”

Justin Phillips, ‎partner and director of environment & infrastructure at Buro Happold Engineering, said: “For over 15 years we have tried various different ways of affecting repairs to the chimneys but if they are going to be safeguarded on the skyline for future generations it has become clear they need to be dismantled and rebuilt.  The process will be done sensitively using a circular rig which will gradually descend from the top as the chimney is dismantled, and then ascend shortly afterwards as the chimney is rebuilt.  The rebuilt chimney will be visibly identical but the pattern of the steel reinforcement and the composition of the concrete has been improved to make the new chimneys less vulnerable to corrosion.”

Pictured below in front of the demolition rig are Justin Phillips from Buro Happold, Timothy Jones from English Heritage, Philip Gullett of BPSDC and Wandsworth Council leader Ravi Govindia.

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Above: Artist's impression of the Battersea Power Station masterplan

Galliford Try Infrastructure has been fined for safety failings after a worker was seriously injured when an excavation trench collapsed on his leg.

Paul Fennelly, then aged 45 from Hamilton, was working for Galliford Try Infrastructure Ltd, trading as Morrison Construction, at a site off the B9012 near Duffus, Moray, when the incident occurred on 1 July 2011.

Elgin Sheriff Court heard yesterday (3rd July) that Mr Fennelly was cutting a section of cast iron water pipe within a 1.3m-deep excavation trench. He had been told the water supply had been turned off but there was a sudden gush of water from the pipe. He dodged to the other side of the pipe but part of the trench collapsed, trapping his right leg against the pipe and covering it with clay. His thigh bone snapped.

His colleagues dug him out and he was taken to hospital where the bone was pinned and bolted back together. He was in hospital for 10 days, had to use walking sticks for five months and was unable to return to work until 11 months later.

Mr Fennelly still needs a further operation and remains in considerable pain.

An investigation by the Health & Safety Executive (HSE) found that Galliford Try Infrastructure Ltd had identified the risks involved in excavation work and implemented daily excavation inspections and training in excavation work. However, insufficient consideration had been given by the company to the potential effect of a sudden flow of water to the stability of the excavation.

Galliford Try Infrastructure Ltd, of Melville Street, Edinburgh, was fined £3,000 after pleading guilty to breaching Regulation 31(1)(a) of the Construction (Design and Management) Regulations 2007.

Following the hearing, HSE principal inspector Niall Miller said: “Risks relating to the collapse of excavations are long-standing and well-documented. As one cubic metre of soil typically weighs between 1.6 and 1.8 tonnes, even the collapse of a small quantity of material is potentially dangerous. Soil collapse can be rapid and completely without warning.

“While the inspection carried out by Galliford Try had concluded that the excavation had been dug appropriately, it had not sufficiently taken the water into account. As a result, the company failed to assess whether additional protective measures were needed to prevent collapse, such as sloping or battering the sides or some form of support such as shoring.

“As a result Mr Fennelly has been left with a very painful injury from which he has still not fully recovered.”

Marley Eternit has produced a video tutorial showing how to find, download and use BIM objects for its range of clay roof tiles.

Architectural practice Foster + Partners has paid off its venture capitalist shareholders and retaken full ownership back to its partners.

The Construction Workers Compensation Scheme (TCWCS) has opened to today to applications from the 3,213 people whose names were on the blacklist that major contractors operated until 2008.

Balfour Beatty is to sell PFI assets to bail out its troubled Engineering Services division and scale back its operations.

Balfour Beatty has confirmed that it has formally begun sale proceedings of its professional services division, Parsons Brinckerhoff.

Barnsley-based structural steelwork company Billington is looking for a new CEO after long-serving Steve Fareham announced his intention to retire next year.

The construction industry’s fatal injury rate deteriorated slightly last year and deaths from long-term asbestos-related disease also increased.

Tender prices rose by 3% in the fourth quarter of 2013 compared to the previous quarter, and by 6.7% year-on-year, according to the UK construction Tender Price Index compiled by RICS’ Building Cost Information Service (BCIS).

Haydn Mursell has taken over from Paul Sheffield as chief executive of Kier.

The government has updated its construction pipeline, setting out £116bn of planned public sector projects.