The procurement of 42 capitally funded priority schools has drawn closer after contractors were invited to a bidding day with the Education Funding Agency this week, Construction News has learned.

Contractors to attend priority schools bidders' day

The £2.4 billion programme is split into two pots with £2bn of work to be procured through private finance, and £400m worth of capitally funded projects, which will be procured through the academies framework.

I commented at some length recently (5 July) about the announcement of the Priority Schools Building Programme, the £2bn scheme to keep at least some schools functioning which replaced the Building Schools for the Future programme aimed at replacing all secondary schools.

The most recent news about the scheme, to be found elsewhere on the Construction National site, is that the original cost of the scheme, which was to be £2.4bn of which £2bn would be via a Private Finance Initiative, is to be reduced by nearly £700m.

The savings, from the PFI part of the programme, will be made by applying a new design standard resulting in a review of the cost per square metre. According to the Education Funding Agency, that would not result in "smaller classrooms becoming more acceptable".

A construction firm has been fined £450,000 for breaching safety rules which led to a 21-year-old roofing sub contractor falling through a hole in a roof and dying two years later.

Thomas Whitmarsh fell within 10 minutes of starting a new job at Menai Shopping Centre, Bangor, Gwynedd, in 2007.

Future Roofs Ltd enjoyed a very successful day at Penistone Show this year.

The weather was beautiful and lots of people were interested in our rubber roofs and green roofs. Many thought as bird table with a green roof was a great idea!

DARPA merges structural engineering principles with new fabrication technologies to demonstrate microstructural control of materials at the micron level; the ultimate objective of the agency’s Materials with Controlled Microstructural Architecture (MCMA) program is to be able to develop materials in the future with properties tailored to meet specific mission requirements.

Exquisite buildings like the Eiffel Tower were made possible because of advances in structural engineering design methods. Truss structures, like the Eiffel Tower, are highly efficient; they can carry the same loads as solid structures, but at approximately one tenth of the weight. This weight and strength advantage is also what enabled the dramatic increase in building heights between 1885 and 1930, when buildings went from an average of ten stories to more than 100 stories, as epitomized by the Empire State Building. With its novel structural engineering, construction of the Eiffel Tower ushered in the age of the skyscraper.

A builder from Canterbury who submitted fraudulent VAT repayment claims to HMRC regarding his building companies has been jailed for five years.

Wayne Morris Harrison, 52, pleaded guilty to two counts of cheating the public revenue, after using his building firms, David Charles Homes Limited and Weybridge Homes Limited, to fraudulently claim VAT refunds worth £812,250.

Construction students at Huntingdonshire Regional College have been helping out the local community by providing outdoor seating for the pupils of Bury CE Primary School.

Designed and built by the students, it provides Bury CE’s pupils with additional outside seating and picnic benches to use during their break times.

The cost of building secondary schools under the Priority Schools Building Programme will be cut by an average of £6 million each under new design standards issued by the Department for Education.

Cost reductions of 30 per cent will be applied to the £2 billion PFI part of the £2.4bn PSBP, when compared with the scrapped £55bn BSF programme.

It may not feel like summer with all the recent rain but now is the ideal time to make sure your roof is fighting fit for winter 2012.

Your roof is an investment that keeps you, your family and your home safe so maintaining it throughout the year is an important part of the upkeep of your house. Now is the perfect time to inspect your roof to ensure that it is fit to stand another British winter.

As times change safety is quite rightfully becoming more important in the workplace. As a company who supply staff in many industries we recognise that many accidents in the work can actually be avoided, by incorporating safe practices. We already have polices and safe practices employed and have today received a CHAS accreditation for safety.