The water provider has issued a contract notice to support its future Quality & Standards IV capital investment programme for the regulatory period starting 2015.

The programme will be divided into two lots: waste water infrastructure and water infrastructure. Each lot is estimated to be worth up to £65m annually with an estimated spend of £390m in each lot between 2015 and 2021.

Well, a Happy New Year to everybody now we've finally made it into 2013. It's that time of year when everybody is trying to make sense of what happened last year and find something – anything! – to cheer us up for the coming 12 months. The NHBC duly obliged, with a cautious optimism following slightly improved registration figures for the three months from September to November: 26,420 compared to 24,731 in the same period last year.

Its commercial director Richard Tamayo said: "2012 has generally not lived up to the hopes we held for it; however as we approach its end there are signs that activity is picking up. Government backed schemes such as NewBuy and Funding for Lending will hopefully provide further support in the New Year to those who have desired to own a home but in the past experienced difficulties obtaining mortgages. Hopefully 2013 can consolidate and then build on this momentum."

C.UK now provide security services for the Hampton based Serpentine Green Shopping Centre, having successfully won yet another long-term security contract.

Serpentine Green Shopping Centre was opened in February 1999 and occupies 318,686 square feet. C.UK have a team of 12 officers on site, who provide security to the Shopping Centre on a 24/7 basis and support the Centre Management’s exclusive events including charity occasions, and brand promotions. The majority of the security team have been taken on by C.UK from the previous security provider; however, several positions have recently been recruited from within the local Peterborough community.

THE boss of a Warwickshire firm scooped two awards at the Banbury Women in Business Awards last month.

Kim Bendzak, managing director of Apple Construction Training based in Fenny Compton, scooped Most Established Business and Most Inspirational Women Business Owner.

Both awards were recognition of the role that Kim has played in spearheading and growing the award-winning, accredited construction training company despite the challenges of operating in an industry that is in decline.

The cloud is no longer a far-off concept. Many tech providers in the construction industry are offering up solutions in the cloud—allowing contractors to choose between an on-premise or hosted solution. With this in mind, construction companies need to determine if the cloud is a good fit for their company. Also, if it is a good fit, what are some key considerations when moving to the cloud?

For Real Goods Solar, www.realgoodssolar.com, Louisville, Colo., a solar-power installer for commercial, residential, and utility, moving to the cloud was the right choice.

The Area 9 Asset Support Contract will include network management and maintenance on all-purpose trunk roads and motorways in the area that includes routes in Birmingham, Herefordshire and Staffordshire.

The contract is worth between £137m and £160m annually over five years with the scope set to extend by up to a further three years, subject to HA operational requirements and satisfactory contractor performance.

Around five contractors are expected to compete for the deal and the time limit for tenders or requests to participate is 30 January at 12pm.

Minster Roofing and Roofline's first branch opened in Crawley on Monday December 3; a second in Luton is opening imminently, followed by further branch openings in 2013.

The new brand takes Minster Group firmly into the domestic roofing market and it will be headed up by Nick Ratcliffe, Minster group marketing director, supported by Paul Maidment, Minster Roofing and Roofline commercial director.

The £34 billion High Speed 2 rail link faces five High Court challenges from a group of 18 councils, Heathrow Hub Ltd, Aylesbury Park Golf Club and two from the HS2 Action Alliance.

The councils allege that the Department for Transport reached the decision through a flawed consultation and inadequate environmental assessment.

They are all members of the 51m Alliance, which is named after the estimated £51m cost of the project to each parliamentary constituency.

Knowing where vehicles are at all times is an essential, yet not always simple task for contractors. High-value equipment, vehicles, and other critical tools can often go unaccounted for on a jobsite, leaving contractor looking for technology that can help them track such assets more effectively.

Electrical contractor Brooks-Berry-Haynie, www.bbhelectric.com, Mableton, Ga., for example, is taking a proactive measure against the loss of high-value assets. Its strategy centers on accurate data for driver behavior and location of valuable trucks through the use of connected devices.

By mounting small devices on the dashboard of the company’s roughly 150 electrical utility trucks it has dispatched across Georgia, Tennessee, South Carolina, North Carolina, and Florida, Brooks-Berry-Haynie is getting a realtime view of data.  Inside the tracking device is a CDMA modem for high speed wireless connectivity.

Barr Construction has been appointed to create a new 40,000 sq ft Asda superstore on the Kingsway West, Dundee.

Barr has worked with major retailers including Waitrose, with whom CN reported it had won a fit-out deal earlier this week, but the £6.5m deal marks the Paisley-based contractor’s first contract with ASDA.

The new Dundee store will be a two storey building with a mezzanine floor, which will be the location for a customer cafe.