Civils

Network Rail has named Bam Nuttall and Morgan Sindall among five contractors on a bumper eight-year framework. The firms are joined on the £2bn programme by Vinci’s civil engineering division Taylor Woodrow, Barnsley-based civil engineering firm AmcoGiffen, and Surrey-based contractor Octavius, which focuses on transport. The jobs will cover essential…

Travel to and from the £26bn Hinkley Point C construction site has been stopped after a double-decker bus carrying 70 site workers crashed early this morning. The bus, which was travelling on the A39 at around 6am, crashed and overturned in icy road conditions. Dozens of people were injured but…

A former council highways worker has been jailed for stealing £1m meant for contractors. Tyler Evans, 42, was handed a sentence of four years and eight months after carrying out a fraud while working for Birmingham City Council from 2010-14. His role was to control the refund of payment bonds…

Environmental campaigners have launched a legal challenge against transport secretary Mark Harper’s decision to approve Balfour Beatty’s A57 Link Roads scheme. The upgrade involves building a new 3.2km bypass between Manchester and Sheffield that would run from the roundabout at the end of the M67 to a new junction on…

Contractors working on National Highways projects will now be automatically enrolled into its project bank accounts. The initiative aims to ensure monies are held in trust in case a lead contractor becomes insolvent during a project, protecting cash for smaller firms. It is also an alternative to retentions, whereby a…

Kensington and Chelsea Council is looking for contractors to carry out £375m-worth of work on its property portfolio. The borough published an official notice seeking interest in a framework agreement to start in the autumn and run for four years, with an option to extend to a further two years.…

Approval has been given for a plant demonstrating nuclear fusion technology in Oxfordshire that is backed by the UK Government as well as Amazon founder Jeff Bezos. Construction of the facility is expected to start this summer, after South Oxfordshire District Council’s planning committee gave it permission yesterday (11 January).…

Construction activity flatlined in the fourth quarter of 2022, according to a Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors survey. The organisation’s construction monitor found that headline workloads across all sectors of the construction industry contracted by a net balance of 1 per cent, compared to seeing 17 per cent growth in…

The government has reappointed Sir John Armitt as chair of the National Infrastructure Commission. The move means Armitt will continue to oversee the body, which advises the government on major infrastructure projects, for a further two years, taking his term to 2025. Armitt has served as chair since 2018. Before…

The transport secretary has delayed a decision on whether to give the green light to a £100m dualling of a section of the A47 near Peterborough, due to be delivered by Galliford Try. The project, which has been proposed by National Highways, will see a 1.4km stretch of dual carriageway…