Thames Valley Police are appealing for witnesses following an attack on HS2 construction site workers by a gang of 30 people. Poilce said the “violent disorder and assault” in Small Dean, Wendover last Friday night left nine members of site security staff injured. HS2 chiefs said the attack was the part of a recent campaign of intimidation and abuse by activists which has forced them to step up security on the job. Main contractor on the job is the EKFB joint venture of Eiffa

Highways England has signed a £507m contract with Skanska to improve the A428 road in the East of England. Skanska will build a 16km dual carriageway between the Black Cat roundabout at St Neots and Caxton Gibbet. The A428 between St Neots and Caxton Gibbet is the only stretch of single carriageway between the M1 near Milton Keynes and Cambridge. Several junction improvements will be made, including a new three-tier junction at the Black Cat roundabout allowing free flowing t

Walsall-based civils and groundworks specialist M&J Evans is expanding into the north west. The £135m turnover Midlands contractor is aiming to open a Warrington office within the next few weeks as part of a strategic expansion of its services. M&J Evans, which was founded in 2003, has been on an expansion drive in recent years setting up a Banbury office to service the Oxfordshire region in 2019. Since then the firm, which works for all the major volume house builders, has e

Specialist hirer Ruislip Plant Ltd has been fined £99,000 after a worker was fatally injured while undertaking maintenance on a piling rig. Reading Crown Court heard that, on 13 May 2014, Ben Wylie was assisting Ruislip Plant Director Noel Kearney (since deceased) with the maintenance of a high-pressure grease track adjusting mechanism at a construction site in Maidenhead. During the process, the grease nipple assembly and a stream of high-pressure grease was forcibly ejected

Construction output grew by 0.9% in January following a 2.9% dip in December, according to the latest ONS figures In the month-on-month all work series, construction output grew by 0.9% in January 2021. The level of output in January 2021 was 2.6% below the February 2020 level, new work was 6.4% below this level, while repair and maintenance work was 4.5% above this level despite a monthly fall. New work increased by 1.7% in January 2021 and was driven by private commercial a

The Competition and Markets Authority has secured the disqualification of three company directors after finding they broke competition law by forming a construction supply cartel. This move follows an investigation into two of the UK’s largest suppliers of rolled lead to roofers – Associated Lead Mills Ltd (ALM) and H.J. Enthoven Ltd (trading as BLM British Lead). The companies admitted last year to forming an illegal cartel and were fined more than £9m. The CMA has now secur

Homes England and development partners Atkins and Faithful+Gould have finalised the research themes for its six-year, 1,800 home MMC research commission The study will test the performance of different types of MMC to provide long-term, in-depth and verifiable data so that informed decisions about emerging construction technologies can be made. Homes England has published a report outlining the study. As part of the government’s objective to improve construction productivity

Chancellor Rishi Sunak has unveiled the UK’s first freeport areas as part of his push to drive investment-led regeneration in the regions. New freeport hub plans can now move forward at East Midlands Airport, Felixstowe and Harwich, Humber, Liverpool City Region, Plymouth, Solent, Thames and Teesside. The free trade zones are designated areas where the normal tax and tariff rules do not apply. This allows goods to be imported, manufactured and re-exported without being subjec

Allison Transmission, the world’s largest manufacturer of fully automatic transmissions for medium- and heavy-duty commercial vehicles, has launched a new warranty promotion for customers in the construction industry. Beginning in January 2021, all new on-highway construction vehicles ordered and delivered between January 1st and December 31st, 2021 specified with Allison’s 4000 Series™ transmission will be entitled to a total of five years’ transmission warranty, extending t