|
|
January 2007 - Posts
-
|
Tata has successfully won its bid for Corus group, formerly British Steel, beating rival Brazillian group CSN.
|
-
|
Scott Wilson has been drafted in by Thai airport bosses after more than 100 cracks appeared in the runways and taxiways of Bangkok's new £1.7bn international airport.
|
-
|
Installation of a grout curtain to stabilise a nuclear waste-filled shaft at Dounreay, Scotland, started last week, paving the way for its decommissioning.
|
-
|
Manchester this week beat off competition from six rival cities to win the right to open Britain's first regional super-casino.
|
-
|
The Labour Party's review of public expenditure will deliver "the tightest squeeze on spending" for a decade if chancellor Gordon Brown sticks to plans pencilled in his budgetary forecasts, the Institute of Fiscal Studies will warn today.
|
-
|
Nuclear companies are positioning themselves to win lucrative contracts to build new nuclear reactors ahead of the government's energy white paper in March.
|
-
|
A £3.5M upgrade of a key section of the M74 near Lesmahagow is to get underway next month.
|
-
|
Airports operator BAA today unveiled its latest plan for a new runway and terminal at Stansted airport. The 3,048m long runway and terminal building will require an additional 486ha of land and cost £1.4bn by the time the terminal opens in 2015.
|
-
|
The final phase of the £1.9bn Dutch High-Speed Rail project has been completed within budget and on schedule, it was revealed today.
|
-
|
Water companies in areas of serious water stress will be able to seek compulsory water metering under plans set out by the government today.
|
-
|
Britain's largest ever waste contract was on Friday awarded to the joint venture of waste contractor Viridor and Laing Roads.
|
-
|
The Middlesborough Institute of Modern Art opened this weekend as part of the regeneration of the north east town, with works by LS Lowry and David Hockney in its collection.
|
-
|
Tube Lines has awarded a £160m extension to its contract Thales's rail signalling solutions business (formerly of Alcatel), for a new system, Seltrac, on the Piccadilly line by 2014.
|
-
|
Dozens of people sitting on the roof of a crowded passenger train were hit by an overhead power line in southern Pakistan yesterday, killing at least 11 people and injuring more than 40 others railways minister, Sheikh Rashid Ahmed confirmed today.
|
-
|
Southern Water on Friday announced that its reservoirs were full, but warned that these water sources only supply a small amount of the South East's water and customers should still be thrifty in their water usage.
|
-
|
Network Rail has announced three of five "framework agreements" for the next five years.
|
-
|
The first ever mass public engagement programme designed to get the nation talking about science and technology has begun under the leadership of the Science Museum.
|
-
|
Culture minister David Lammy has announced that the third century AD Temple of Mithras in the City of London is to be Grade II-listed.
|
-
|
When a rail company's replacement bus service broke down in the middle of the night, miles from its destination, the passengers thought that the journey could not get any worse. They didn't count on the possibility that the train's staff would hop into a taxi and disappear into the frosty night, leaving them stranded in the snow for several hours. This was the South West Trains service from Waterloo to the middle of nowhere, via Woking - The Times
|
-
|
Organisers of London 2012 yesterday announced their intention to recruit a rail consultant to deal with the millions of passengers expected to make the journey to the Games.
|
-
|
Without updates to design codes homes will become uninsurable against wetter, windier weather, engineers and climate change experts warned this week.
|
-
|
Thousands of contracts may need to be rewritten and numerous adjudication processes could fall apart following a ruling in the Technology and Construction Court (TCC) last week.
|
-
|
Tunnelling experts this week questionned contractors decision to use the New Austrian Tunnelling Method (NATM)on the section of the Sao Paulo Metro that collapsed earlier this month
|
-
|
HIV and AIDS are jeaopardising South Africa's preparations for the 2010 World Cup and threatening to undermine South Africa's £21bn infrastructure spending programme, consultants warned this week.
|
-
|
Commuters should not expect to get a seat when travelling at peak times, a senior civil servant has said. Mike Mitchell, the director general of rail at the Department for Transport, said it was not realistic to make such guarantees - The Daily Telegraph
|
-
|
MPs yesterday demanded a breakdown of the cost of the London 2012 programme manager, delivery partner CLM, after finding that the role accounts for £400M of the £900M cost overrun so far admitted by the Olympic Delivery Authority.
|
-
|
The Conservatives have lashed out at the government, saying that three-quarters of the major transport projects in the UK were in Labour constituencies during the past year.
|
-
|
A claim against consultants WSP was thrown out of the Technology and Construction court last week as a "waste of public time and money" after the plaintiff previously sued the project contractor and insurer.
|
-
|
A tight construction timetable for the London 2012 Olympics has forced Games bosses to produce a sustainability plan that falls short of previous targets and Mayor yesterday.
|
-
|
Balfour Beatty, the construction firm that bought Exeter airport three months ago, is among the final bidders in the £120 million-plus auction of Leeds airport, The Times has learnt. Balfour, which also tried and failed to buy London's City airport last year, is understood to be through to a shortlist of up to five bidders, alongside Bridgepoint, the private equity firm.Leeds was put up for sale last November by the five local council authorities that own the airport. The shortlisted bidders, which were informed of their selection on Monday night, have until February 28 to make their final offers. - The Times
|
-
|
Milton Keynes, designed to house Londoners within an easy commute of the capital, is 40 today.
|
-
|
Rail commuters were threatened yesterday with £1,000 fines or jail for refusing to pay fares in protest at delays and overcrowding.
|
-
|
Three new directors have taken up their posts at the Office of Rail Regulation, which restructured earlier this month.
|
-
|
ICE Wales has set out a multi-billion pound wish-list of projects needed to support Welsh economic growth.
|
-
|
Scottish Water this week announced it has appointed 20 consulting firms under four year framework contracts to carry out capital improvement works.
|
-
|
Remedial Work being carried out to Ascot racecourse's new grandstand opened to public scrutiny for the first time this weekend since contractors moved onto site before Christmas.
|
-
|
Bovis Lend Lease is getting tough on staff "freebies" by asking all staff to report any gifts and entertainment provided by contractors and suppliers on the company's intranet as part of a new Entertainment and Gifts policy.
|
-
|
Stricken container ship MSC Napoli will today have some of its oil pumped away to avert an environmental disaster.
|
-
|
Alistair Darling today appointed Dr. Tim Stone as senior advisor to lead the Department for Trade and Industry's unit into costs for nuclear new build, decommissioning and waste management.
|
-
|
The private consortium that maintains the track and trains on London Underground's Northern Line is close to finalising contract changes that should transform the reliability of the troubled line's trains.
|
-
|
Ten people have died, and the UK's infrastructure was brought to a virtual standstill yesterday as high winds battered the country.
|
-
|
Plans to transform the entrance to the new Wembley stadium were unveiled by developed Quintain this week, less than five months before the stadium is due to open.
|
-
|
Engineering firms have slammed trade associations for not ensuring key civil engineering jobs are included on the latest round of the National Shortage Occupation List, issued by the Home Office.
|
-
|
Construction of new nuclear power plants is expected to become easier this week after safety regulators issued pre-licensing requirements for new plants.
|
-
|
Carbon dioxide is accumulating in the atmosphere much faster than scientists expected, raising fears that humankind may have less time to tackle climate change than previously thought. From 1970 to 2000 the concentarion of CO2 rose by 1.5 part per million (ppm) per year. Last year saw a rise of 2.6ppm - The Guardian
|
-
|
Uncertainty surrounds freight routes for bringing construction materials into London's Olympic Park because fuding for a vital canal lock had yet to be secured, London 2012 bosses admitted last week
|
-
|
Salaries of £75,000 are being offered to engineers in their early 30s as the industry struggles to cope with a massive shortage of project managers.
|
-
|
Transport for London predicts congestion will rise as a result of the congestion charge extension.
|
-
|
Network Rail has demanded that "unacceptable" levels of leakage into the new Thameslink station box be reduced, it emerged this week.
|
-
|
Four water companies - Thames Water, Southern Water, Three Valleys Water and Sutton and East Surrey Water have lifted their hosepipe bans.
|
-
|
Rail Minister Tom Harris this week denied that Crossrail would be built at the expense of Thameslink and said that funding already committed by government showed its dedication to both schemes.
|
-
|
Balfour Beatty subsidiary Consort Healthcare has been selected by NHS Fife as preferred bidder for the £152M Fife General Hospital and Maternity Services PPP project.
|
-
|
Geotechnical experts this week expressed surprise that there were no visible anchors or struts supporting the walls of a 40m diameter, 30m deep shaft that collapsed in Sao Paulo, Brazil, last Friday. Seven passers by were swept into the shaft as the wall sheared away and earth poured into the shaft. They are assumed dead.
|
-
|
A huge winter storm has claimed the lives of 42 people and left half a million without electricity. "This is a big one, affecting all the way from New Mexico to Maine," Dennis Feltgen, a spokesperson for the National Weather Service, said. - The Times
|
-
|
The humble hedgehog has been voted by the public as England and Wales' number one Icon of the Environment, as part of an Environment Agency survey.
|
-
|
Consultant Mott MacDonald has bought US energy specialist Careba Power Engineers for an undisclosed sum.
|
-
|
Eurotunnel, the troubled operator of the Channel Tunnel, looked to have narrowly avoided bankruptcy yesterday after a French court approved a plan to halve its debt and brushed aside lawsuits from 33 of the group's creditors. The court granted the company 36 months to complete its restructuring plans, which will see its creditors paid less than half of the £6.2bn they are owed - The Independent
|
-
|
Entries for the Structural Awards 2007 are now being accepted.
|
-
|
Scott Wilson is to target organic turnover growth of 10% and operating margins of 8% after posting strong interim results for the six months ending 29 October 2006
|
-
|
Tube Lines have invited expressions of interest from manufacturers, for new trains for the London Underground Piccadilly line.
|
-
|
New research carried out by the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC) has found that more women are choosing to study engineering but that this increase is failing to translate into an equivalent increase in women in the profession
|
-
|
An RAC patrol man stripped to his underpants to rescue two drivers stuck in flood-water even though they were not members of the motoring organisation.
|
-
|
Minister for climate change and environment Ian Pearson announced £1.7M funding would be granted for 15 nationwide projects during a visit to Great Yarmouth, where residents have recently suffered from surface water flooding.
|
-
|
New guidance on the assessment of nuclear power station designs was published by nuclear regulators today.
|
-
|
Yorkshire Water has awarded a £25.6M waste water treatment works upgrade contract to a joint venture of Morrison Construction and Earth Tech.
|
-
|
Environment minister Ian Pearson has announced two new non-executive board members - Michael Brooker and Gillian Owen for the water regulator, Ofwat.
|
-
|
The collapse of a dam in Brazil on Wednesday has dumped an estimated 2bnl of toxic material into rivers, state officials announced yesterday.
|
-
|
Business leaders from 17 of Britain's largest companies have formed a taskforce to develop radical ideas on tackling climate change. Chaired by BT chief executive Ben Verwaayen, the taskforce also includes Tesco boss Sir Terry Leahy, Shell UK chairman James Smith, RWE Npower chief executive Andrew Duff and Rolls-Royce chief executive Sir John Rose - Financial Times
|
-
|
Plans to build up to 12,000 homes around the Buncefield oil depot that exploded in December 2005 were this week condemned by local MP Mike Penning.
|
-
|
Shropshire gained a stunning new tourist attraction this week following the opening of RAF Cosford's latest aircraft hangar.
|
-
|
Attempts to improve construction's health and safety record could be derailed by delays in publishing an approved code of practice (ACOP) for the revised Construction (Design and Management) Regulations, a leading safety adviser warned this week.
|
-
|
Docklands Light Railway (DLR) has awarded the first of three major construction contracts to Skanska in partnership with GrantRail to build the £211M DLR extension to Stratford International, a key part of the transport plans for the 2012 Games.
|
-
|
Urgent structural repairs are being carried out to the 7.8km long Oresund Bridge linking Sweden and Denmark after cracks were discovered in concrete at 50 different locations late last year.
|
-
|
Thameslink's future hangs in the balance until this summer, when a series of reports will determine whether the £3.5bn project goes ahead.
|
-
|
This 14 February engineering relief charity RedR is calling for supporters to wear a red item of clothing and dig deep into their pockets for the charity.
|
-
|
Tony Blair insisted that he would press ahead with pilot road pricing schemes yesterday, despite more than 40,000 people signing a petition against them in less than 24 hours. Blair's official spokesman sounded a defiant note as the number of opponents to the proposals on the Downing Street website, www.petitions.pm.gov.uk, reached more than 218,000 - The Times
|
-
|
Attempts to improve construction's health and safety record could be derailed by delays in publishing an approved code of practise (ACOP) for the revised Construction (Design and Management) Regulations, a leading safety advisor warned this week.
|
-
|
Plans to build up to 12,000 homes around the Buncefield Oil Depot, that exploded in December 2005, were this week condemned by local MP Mike Penning.
|
-
|
A technology gap must be filled in order to meet the government's target of building zero-emission homes within 10 years, according to the Home Builders Federation (HBF).
|
-
|
Hammersmith & Fulham Housing Management Services (HFHMS)have chosen Lovell to carry out £32 million of improvement work to 5,200 homes over the next four years.
|
-
|
Britons spend 15% of their income on transport more than anyone else in Europe, according to a study for the BBC by the Centre for Economics and Business Research. Commuters also travel further to get to work and spend twenty minutes more in transit every week than they did 10 years ago - The Times
|
-
|
A meeting of the Committee of Public Accounts yesterday quizzed rail heads over the controversial upgrade of the West Coast Main Line service (WCML), but questions quickly turned to ticketing across the network.
|
-
|
Russia yesterday shut off a key oil pipeline to the EU, sparking fears that a new energy dispute could drive up oil prices.
|
-
|
Drainage supplier Asset International today announced it had reached a partnership agreement with Welsh Water that will allow the use of light-weight plastic storm drains.
|
-
|
The European Commission will tomorrow call for "a new industrial revolution", promoting renewable energy and nuclear power to replace dwindling fossil fuels and combat climate change. Its controversial proposals, outlined in a series of papers on energy policy and competition, are partly based on research published yesterday showing that the price of oil and gas is likely to double to $110 a barrel as global reserves plateau - The Guardian
|
-
|
The government have launched a consultation into how to best create weath and promote science and education through a civil space programme.
|
-
|
Construction giant AMEC has been awarded the contract to provide mechanical, electrical and piped services to the Thames link station beneath St Pancras in London.
|
-
|
Armed military police may guard the gas pipeline at Bacton, Norfolk, under new government plans, as security is upgraded across the energy sector due to fears that energy supplies are vulnerable to terrorist attack - Financial Times
|
-
|
A lack of rainfall and unusual atmospheric pressures have been blamed for the drought that has left some of Venice's canals little more then muddy ditches.
|
-
|
A huge contract to widen the M1, worth £340M, has been awarded to MVM, a joint venture made up of Vinci, Sir Robert McAlpine, Morgan Est, Gifford and WSP.
|
-
|
The fabric roof of Canada's main stadium for the 2010 Winter Olympics partially collapsed on Friday after a section tore away from the concrete compression ring it was attached to.
|
-
|
UK coal production is dropping dramatically, but coal imports are increasing to take advantage of falling coal prices, according to new statistics from the Department of Trade & Industry.
|
-
|
The EU is set to step up its fight against uncompetitive practices in Europe's energy markets after an inquiry by Competition Commissioner Neelie Kroes. Her report, to be unveiled next week, has found evidence of collusion by some of the Continent's biggest energy companies.The Times
|
-
|
Police have appealed for witnesses after vandals tried to hack through cables supporting a footbridge over the M60 in Greater Manchester.
|
-
|
DEFRA is allocating £1.5M to a series of studies looking at ways of preventing flooding or creating alternative uses for flood prone land.
|
-
|
Britain's biggest train company is scrapping its most reliable trains more than a decade earlier than scheduled, replacing them cheaper trains that break down twice as often. South West Trains will send 120 Class 442 carriages into storage in sidings next week despite protests by Passenger Focus, the national rail passenger watchdog. - Times
|
-
|
New Civil Engineer wants young consultants and engineers under 35 to enter the NCE/ACE Young Consultant of the Year Award 2007. The award which rewards young excellence and talent in the field of consultancy and engineering.
|
-
|
Westminster City Council may scrap free parking spaces for motorcycles and scooters in its borough because of a boom in riders in the city.
|
-
|
Energy giant E.ON has lodged a planning application for a 10 turbine wind farm in County Durham.
|
-
|
Rail fares increased by more than the rate of inflation across the country yesterday, with rises of up to 7.3% for passengers using the Heathrow and Gatwick express services and Hull Trains.
|
-
|
Network Rail engineers worked through Christmas and new year to complete major improvements to the West Coast Main Line in the Midlands.
|
-
|
The construction industy ended 2006 on a high with December seeing accelerated growth in construction activity according to a report published by the Chartered Institute of Purchasing and Supply (CIPS) today.
|
-
|
Fainting dieters are among the top causes of New York subway delays, according to the city's transport authority.The Telegraph
|
-
|
The World Bank has concluded that Sri Lankan reconstrcution has made "satisfactory progress" following the Boxing Day tsunami of 2004.
|
-
|
Two nuclear power stations were taken out of service on 31 December 2006, marking the end of their 40 year life.
|
-
|
Thames Water has launched the second stage of consultation over the proposed construction of a reservoir in Oxfordshire.
|
-
A beach walker was crushed to death by a falling cliff yesterday. Caroline Palser, 55, was walking with her partner along South Beach, Whitehaven, Cumbria when a section of cliff slipped away and fell on her. Metro
|
-
|
Engineers have been honoured in the Queen's 2007 New Year's Honours list. Dr David Wynford Williams, lately the national Hydrographer and Chief Executive of the UK Hydrographic Office, part of the Ministry of Defence, was made a Companion of the Order of the Bath (a CB).
|
|
|
|