A £7m extra care housing development is being planned in Middlesbrough.

The former Thorntree Library and Youth Centre would be demolished to make way for the project proposed by the Vela Housing Group, which includes Housing Hartlepool and Tristar Homes.

Middlesbrough Council’s executive sub-committee for property has agreed to transfer the site to Vela so the development can go ahead.

The project is subject to a bid being successful for cash from a care and support housing fund being run by the Homes and Communities Agency.

An influential committee of MPs has called Sir Robert McAlpine director Cullum McAlpine, one of the figures most implicated in the blacklisting scandal, to appear in public next week.

The Scottish Affairs Committee has called Cullum McAlpine to give evidence to the committee next Tuesday as part of its ongoing investigation into blacklisting.

The news comes as the London Assembly passed a motion yesterday calling for the Mayor Boris Johnson to show that no blacklisting has taken place on the £15bn Crossrail project.

Will 2013 be the year of mobile applications for the construction industry? Contractors have always been on-the-go, needing access to critical project information at the jobsite. As of late, solution providers are coming to market with applications and devices that allow construction companies to take that data to the field in new ways.

Move over iPad. One recent announcement for the construction industry comes from last week’s 2013 Intl. CES, which took place in Las Vegas, Nev. At the show, Panasonic Corp., www.panasonic.com, Osaka, Japan, announced the development of a new 4K tablet.

The broker is now creating tailored policies for members, expanding their portfolio of suitable cover available.

The announcement follows the launch of a roofing contractors scheme by the Electrical Contractors Insurance Company for certified roofers and industry body members.

Giles will operate an exclusive hotline for members of the industry body to contact a dedicated construction team, each member being allocated a dedicated account handler.

Three members of Kitsons' Employment team, Jayme Nicholson (2nd left), Rhodri Davey (2nd right) and Rory Wakeling (far right) recently provided training in London to the Construction Industry, hosted by the Guild of Construction Workers, by performing a mock Employment Tribunal dealing with the regularly contested topic of employment status. Former MP David Mellor QC sat as Judge for the event.

The mobile revolution is transforming the construction industry. With the influx of mobile devices at the jobsite, contractors are more often turning to apps to do quick calculations. Still, many of the simple math calculators won’t provide the trade-specific functions required in the construction industry today.

Enter DEWALT, www.dewalt.com, Towson, Md., and its DEWALT Mobile Pro app. The product, which was originally released in May of last year, was developed with contractors and tradesmen in mind. Near the end of last year, DEWALT announced updates to the app, which includes new add-on packs for electrical and landscaping.

A leading UK steel glazing company has supplied fire-rated systems to several Olympic, FIFA and other major stadiums. Wrightstyle’s technical director Lee Coates reports on fire safety.

It’s been called “codifying by catastrophe” - how fire and other safety regulations have often come about because of tragedy.

In stadium design, the most awful example remains the UK’s worst football disaster, which claimed the lives of 96 Liverpool fans in 1989. Hillsborough, back in the news again amid evidence of official cover-up, is testament to how poor crowd management and police control can so easily become tragedy. The subsequent Taylor Report led to radical change, and the much safer stadiums we see today.

The housebuilder, which was founded three decades ago by Paul Rider and operated across West and South Yorkshire, had seven development sites with houses remaining to be sold, including three sites that are only partly completed.

Green construction remains a hot topic across the globe as owners, contractors, engineers, and architects all look for the best and most efficient tools to make their projects more energy efficient. These tools include construction technology, as well as certification programs. These days, project teams have a few routes to go in each category.

Wakefield council has signed a deal with Shanks paving the way for Kier to build a waste treatment plant at South Kirkby.

Under the 25-year, £750m PFI deal, Shanks will build the new facility to process 230,000 tonnes of municipal waste each year.