University of Wolverhampton architecture students have designs on bringing a historical building back to the future in Telford.

The Anstice Memorial Hall, which is located in Anstice Square in Madeley, is almost 150 years old and was opened as a working men’s club in 1870 in memory of local businessman, John Anstice, a founder of the Madeley Wood Company.

After closing its doors in 2014, a local campaign resulted in Madeley Town Council (MTC) buying the building with potential uses being considered following community surveys and engagement.

The Association for Project Safety (APS) has announced the appointment of Lesley McLeod as their new CEO. She starts on Monday 19th September. 

Lesley joins APS from Energy UK, where she was Board Director, Communications and Public Affairs. 

Siltbuster, the UK’s leading water treatment company, has created and installed a processing plant in just seven days to help remove dissolved iron from groundwater as part of the £1 billion project commissioned by National Grid and Scottish Power Transmission. The project to build the Western Link is bringing renewable energy from Scotland to homes and businesses in England and Wales and is being delivered by a Consortium of Prysmian Group (responsible for cable manufacture and installation) and Siemens (responsible for converter stations).

The dissolved, iron contamination arose when below ground, high voltage, power cables were being installed. The complex cable routes, spanning a distance of 420 Km, pass within TATA Steel’s works at Shotton. When installing the 400kV A.C cables on this land it was found that the groundwater generated was in parts heavily contaminated with dissolved iron. Such contaminated water would pose significant risk to aquatic life if discharged without treatment.

New poll finds building services sector confident following EU referendum result, but that it prioritises Single Market.

The building services engineering sector - which makes up 40 per cent of the UK’s construction and maintenance industry - believes it will successfully weather the outcome of Brexit over the next few years. That's according to major new survey findings from the Electrical Contractors' Association (ECA), the Building Engineering Services Association (BESA) and Scotland’s trade association for the electrical industry SELECT.

Almost half of survey respondents (46 per cent) believe Brexit will have a positive impact on their company in just five years’ time, with less than one in five (19 per cent) saying it will have a negative impact. (23 per cent said it would have no discernible impact). However, the largest contractors in the survey (with over £20 million turnover) are slightly less optimistic about the short term business prospects than smaller contractors.

CISRS are pleased to announce the accreditation and opening of a second Overseas Scaffolding Training Scheme (OSTS) centre in South Korea.

The new centre in Ulsan, in the south of the country, is opened in partnership with OSTS approved training providers, Safety & Access – celebrating their 25th anniversary this year – and Applus Velosi: Oil and gas industry sector service providers, who focus on vendor inspection, third party inspection, certification, testing, engineering and manpower services for the oil & gas sector globally.

A number of key appointments at specialist financial services broker Midlands Asset Finance means the company has doubled its staff to 15 in the past 12 months.

The firm, which is run by husband and wife team Dave and Sue Chapman, has experienced year-on-year growth since it was founded in 2009, which has led to the firm increasing its employee headcount and purchasing its own premises, just off junction 28 of the M1 motorway.

Renewable heating expert Finn Geotherm, has completed a landmark installation for leading European agricultural plant breeder RAGT Seeds in Cambridgeshire, to deliver both heat and passive cooling with significant energy savings.

RAGT's initial brief was to reduce the heating costs for its six glasshouses, which are used for developing new crops. LPG had previously been used to heat the glasshouses which, with a U value of around six, meant the boiler was in constant use in winter, leading to issues with fuel supply and heat distribution as the system couldn't keep up with the heat being generated. RAGT needed a new system to work with its existing grow tubes.

The NASC has created new membership certificates for its three tiers of membership – full contracting, full non contracting (hire, sales and manufacturing) and information only members.   

The colourful new certificates have a professional appearance and carry a brief explanation setting out the requirement for achieving and maintaining compliance with NASC membership status, along with a statement that NASC member companies are expected to comply with confederation standards.

Heckmondwike FB, the leading specialist in heavy contract fibre bonded carpets and carpet tiles, has worked with over 26,000 schools to provide tailor-made carpets suited to their specifications. With the recent RIBA survey confirming innovative products and strong materials – like Heckmondwike’s Supacord – positively impact teacher and pupil morale, soft-furnishings are becoming an even more important part of school renovations and should be prioritised at the start of any new project.

Following the release and review of RIBA’s˟ survey looking into the impact on performance pre and post re-design, the research shows that both teachers and pupils reap the benefits when it comes to a thoughtfully designed building. The design of an education building, or rather the poor design of it, has been linked to peer on peer bullying, low performance and a decline in teacher morale. And, with secondary school places due to go up by an estimated 105,000 by 2025˟, good design is needed to suit all demands.

A new gutter sealing system called, Metseal, which means you no longer need to use messy silicone to make Cast Aluminium guttering watertight is available to buy on the Rainclear website along with all your guttering components, downpipes and fittings.

In conjunction with Metex, Rainclear have developed a dry-jointing gutter sealing kit to give a watertight seal on traditional half round cast aluminium gutters. They are expected, when installed in accordance with the included instructions, to last as long as the system they seal (and longer than the traditional silicone alternative, the thickness and coverage of which can vary and that also needs to ‘set’ before it becomes watertight). Rainclear, the UK’s largest online retailer and stockist of rainwater systems, are confident their customers will benefit from this innovation, the Hydrostrips for Cast iron have been a popular replacement to silicone for over half a decade, and Metseal now offers the same solution for cast aluminium. Rainclear are offering Metseal packs at an introductory ‘half price’ offer for September.