NASC Member Company wins Access & Scaffolding category award at 2015 Construction News Specialist Awards event at Hilton Park Lane, London

NASC member companies were widely represented at the 11th annual Construction News Specialist Awards held at the London Hilton in Park Lane on Wednesday 18 March, with five companies shortlisted and an outright winner in the Access & Scaffolding category - Chris Sedgeman Scaffolding Ltd - for scaffolding at the Dawlish Railway repair project, following the infamous storm damage in 2013.

Twenty-year-old Alex O’Brien had set his sights on becoming an accountant – and had the exam marks to match his goal – but at the last minute decided to become a construction apprentice instead after finding out about the benefits of work based learning.

The new flagship Barker and Stonehouse store on Teesside Retail Park is literally being brought to life, thanks to the creation of the first ‘living’ wall and roof on Teesside.

Thousands of colourful plants will soon transform a south-facing wall and the roof into a bright display and wildlife habitat in time for the store’s opening on March 28.

As its success continues throughout 2015, the Built Environment Sustainability Training (BEST) Programme, working in collaboration with Project Five, will be delivering additional, accredited building information modelling (BIM) courses throughout Wales. The latest course to be announced by the programme is the delivery of CQFW Level 3 accredited course; “BIM for Facilities Management”. 

Hope Construction Materials, the UK’s largest independent supplier of construction materials, has completed the supply of 12,500m3 of concrete for the build of more than 300 new military homes.

The project, which launched in August, saw 346 new homes built, with Hope providing the concrete slab flooring for each home, using their HOPEFlow high-performance, self-compacting concretes, to ensure that the build was completed to a stringent timescale.

Marshalls has launched a comprehensive new range of products proving it continues to lead the way in public realm innovations, supplying the highest quality materials.

The latest products from Marshalls, the UK's leading hard landscaping manufacturer, combine clever engineering and technology, with imaginative ways to save time and costs across all disciplines, from innovative paving options, to sustainable urban drainage systems and the very latest in creative street furniture solutions.

We live in a Health & Safety-obsessed world. Or so it seems. 

Schools, colleges, organisations, shops and businesses up and down the land take great pains to prove that they are ultra-conscientious about Health & Safety practices and are fully compliant with Health & Safety laws. They draw up strategies. They assess risks. They run Health & Safety courses. And — most importantly — they tick boxes. 

VAT rules are undermining sustainable development by rewarding developers who demolish buildings and penalising those who refurbish.

Duncan Baker-Brown, architect of the University of Brighton’s Waste House, Britain’s first house made almost entirely of thrown-away materials, is calling on politicians to introduce an award system that encourages green retrofit projects to reduce CO2 emissions and combat climate change.

Increasingly across the pipeline inspection market clients are looking to obtain standardised survey reports that can easily be compared from one survey to the next to highlight changes and deterioration in their pipe networks. 

This piece on 'Thought Leadership' was written by Mark Wakeford, managing director at Stepnell on behalf of the Built Environment Hub.

Here we go again! The construction industry picks up after a recession, we are short of skills and everyone is surprised! Quite rightly the industry is responding to this in the time honoured way of encouraging more people into the industry at apprentice, graduate and mature entry points.