Neil Murray, who was a senior construction officials within the Health and Safety Executive, takes overall responsibility for health and safety matters across the London-based construction group.

“Even in just a short time meeting the senior team and divisional leadership it is clear to me that this is a group with a great deal of energy and focus on doing the right thing,” said Mr Murray.

“There is a clear vision to Plan Safe, Work Safe across the group and my role is to help deliver that vision by making sure a common way of working is applied consistently.”

Legal proceedings have begun against the UK government after the European Commission found it failed to deliver a number of environmental regulations.

The Energy Performance of Buildings Directive came into force in 2010, and required all EU states to enhance their building regulations and to introduce energy certification schemes for buildings. The directive was part of a move towards new and retrofitted nearly-zero energy buildings by 2020.

The European Directive also states that an up-to-date Energy Performance Certificate (EPC) should be made available whenever a residential property is put up for sale or rent, while Display Energy Certificates (DECs), which detail a building’s energy consumption, should be on display in public buildings.

Contracts have now been signed on a major affordable housing scheme on the edge of Northampton which means the town will soon benefit from over 100 houses and apartments.

Loughborough-based contractor and developer, William Davis will start work on the £11.2m Booth Rise scheme in December. Booth Rise, off Lumbertubs Way, is a scheme the developer has secured through the Homes and Communities Agency’s (HCA) Delivery Partner Panel and is also the first of its kind in Northampton.

An exciting new initiative which enables apprentices to complete a full apprenticeship programme by working with a number of different employers was launched yesterday by CITB-ConstructionSkills.

The Shared Apprenticeship Scheme is a new skills intervention which has been set up to address some of the difficulties faced by employers  who want to support further skills development while working on regional contracts but are not in a position to offer a full term apprenticeship.

A former director of a building and roofing company has been disqualified from occupying a similar role for seven years following a catalogue of financial irregularities.

Henry McQuillan (43) of Loughbeg Road, Toomebridge, Co Antrim, was disqualified in respect of his conduct as a director of McQuillan Roofing Limited, the Department of Enterprise, Trade and Investment said.

The company went into liquidation in April 2010 with estimated liabilities of over £215,000.

No one could deny the outstanding achievement of the BMD Seymour Whyte Joint Venture at this year's Construction Skills Queensland (CSQ) Excellence Awards. The team earned numerous awards including the prestigious Employer Commitment to Training Excellence Award (over $20 million turnover).

Judging panels were impressed by the joint venture's commitment to development of individual workers in all areas of the project, and the creation of networks of highly functioning teams.

Are you taking full advantage of all the capabilities your ERP (enterprise-resource planning) software has to offer? With trends like mobile, collaboration, and the cloud all big talking points in the construction industry, ERP applications continue to advance, allowing contractors to do more with the technology than ever before.

Take the recent partnership between Computer Guidance Corp., www.computerguidance.com, Scottsdale, Ariz., and Trimble Navigation, www.trimble.com, Sunnyvale, Calif., as an example. Last week, the companies announced integration between software, connecting data from Trimble’s positioning solutions in the field with Computer Guidance’s ERP software in the backoffice.

DFR Roofing are pleased to have been appointed as roofing contractors for the Torbay Leisure Centre re-roofing project. Totalling 3,500m2, the existing roofs to the Sports Hall and Swimming Pool are to be removed, and replaced using a new High Performance felt roof system incorporating insulation to provide cost efficiency savings over the coming years.

A contract requiring a substantial amount of planning and phasing to enable the Centre to operate throughout the works. Working closely with the Centre management, DFR have commenced works and are proceeding to all expectations.

With an eventful summer now behind us, it appears that the construction sector is going through a phase of site security project assessments and contract renewals. Permanex CCS Group has never been busier, drafting site security proposals and signing up new projects.

"We've found that when the current economic downturn hit construction companies, a number either simply did nothing about site security or looked to deploy simple CCTV solutions in a bid to cut costs," explained David Fox, senior consultant with Permanex CCS Group. "They are now coming to realise that an effective solution can be extremely cost effective but that it has to be appropriately designed, correctly installed and constantly monitored if it is to have the desired impact; and are turning to us as a major supplier of site and scaffolding monitoring solutions to instigate a cost effective package."

When technology providers partner construction companies benefit. Integrated software offerings allow contractors to increase efficiencies in the backoffice. Case in point: Sharing estimating and digital-takeoff data with ERP (enterprise-resource planning) and accounting software can enable contractors to win more projects and more efficiently manage processes.

One recent construction-technology partnership comes from On Center Software, www.oncenter.com, The Woodlands, Texas, and Viewpoint Construction Software, www.viewpointcs.com, Portland, Ore.