Civils

Stay ahead of your competitors with the latest news, opinion and analysis of civil engineering projects worked on by UK construction contractors.

CN’s top 10 features of 2023: safety, finance and project reports

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10. How do we make modular buildings safer? More than eight months after fire-service leaders published a five-page document outlining a litany of concerns about modular buildings, and more than a year-and-a-half after safety body Cross-UK highlighted the potential for concealed spread of fire inside extensive cavities within such structures,…

Contractors can help the public sector get projects off the ground

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Rebecca Hartshorn is the national framework director at John Sisk & Son The UK could easily find itself in a period of tumultuous politics in the near future, but it’s vitally important that public sector projects are able to continue as normally as possible. The potential for a change of…

How to make the business case for government money

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Mark Collins is executive director at Bentley Project Management With a general election coming in the next year or so, and the third round of levelling-up funding on the horizon, it’s crunch time for a host of major regeneration projects looking to squeeze the last remaining funds from the current…

Heat networks: a revolution on the road to net zero

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Helena Rivers is net-zero lead for buildings and places at consultancy Aecom The National Infrastructure Commission’s (NIC) recent assessment of how infrastructure could support economic growth and tackle climate change made a bold statement. In essence, it recommended that the government should no longer pursue the rollout of hydrogen heating…

Contractors can harness natural features for flood resilience

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Paul Cannaby is director of civil engineering at construction consultancy Pick Everard Recent years have seen an increase in weather extremes, with severe droughts and major flooding in the UK and globally due to climate change. This necessitates strengthening flood resilience but it’s not all about large-scale infrastructure – there…

Navigating the changing tides of water management in construction

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Tristan Hughes is business unit manager at water-service provider OSSO The UK experiences the fifth-largest average precipitation in Europe. While frequently complained about, the steady supply of rainfall is critical for the country’s water supply. But it also poses major challenges. The duty of care for any construction firm or…

Hole reversal: innovation on the Silvertown Tunnel

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Rotating the UK’s biggest tunnel-borer 180 degrees is no mean feat – but it means only one machine is needed and the job will get done a lot quicker. Joshua Stein reports on the Silvertown Tunnel project Rotating the UK’s biggest tunnel-boring machine (TBM) 180 degrees may seem like a…

A bridge so far: HS2’s Colne Valley viaduct

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Crossing a busy road and several waterways, building HS2’s Colne Valley Viaduct has prompted some novel approaches. Ben Vogel finds out how the Align JV is taking on the challenge Project: Colne Valley Viaduct and Chiltern Tunnels, both part of HS2 Phase One Central 1 (C1) Client: HS2 C1 overall…

Didcot seven years on: no answers, no lessons, no justice

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As the investigation into the deaths of four men at a decommissioned power station enters its eighth year, Ian Weinfass speaks to some of those still affected by the tragedy and asks why the industry has received no guidance since Sadie Cresswell has been waiting for seven years to find…

Overcoming the threat to Britain’s infrastructure pipeline

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Nick Gray is COO at Currie & Brown Infrastructure investment is a key lever for boosting the UK economy, so the chancellor’s recent commitment to HS2 being delivered in full is welcome news. However, between soaring inflation, supply-chain uncertainty, and the threat of an economic recession, infrastructure as a whole,…