News round-up - week ending 10 October

Driverless Tube trains, hydrogen cars and new top team at Vinci Construction all in the news this week.

  1. Arup and AECOM have been appointed as advisors for the Tokyo 2020 Olympics for the development of venues and infrastructure for the Games.

  2. House price momentum has slowed to the same level it was16 months ago, according to the latest RICS Residential Market Survey. Nationally, new buyer demand slipped for the third consecutive month 

  3. The Infrastructure Client Group has released its 2014/15 Work Programme for improving infrastructure delivery. Read it here 

  4. Business Minister Matthew Hancock has announced up to £11 million of funding for hydrogen cars. The money will help establish an initial network of up to 15 hydrogen refuelling stations by the end of 2015 and includes £2 million of funding for public sector hydrogen vehicles

  5. London Underground is planning to introduce "driverless” trains to the Piccadilly Line in 2022 but initially they would still have drivers.  Only when entire fleets of old stock has been replaced by the new Priestman Goode fleet, unveiled this week, in the mid-2020s will trains begin running automatically without drivers though each would still have a member of staff on board.

  6. New boss of Vinci Construction Bruno Dupety who took over last week from chief executive John Stannion has put in place a new senior team. Managing director Andrew Ridley-Barker and commercial director Paul Tuplin have left and will not be replaced. Regional director Chris Hamer has been promoted to be managing director of the building business and as previously reported Julian Gatward has moved from Roger Bullivant to take over from Taylor Woodrow MD Graham Stanley when he retires at the end of the year.

  7. Carillion is the first company to benefit from the new Direct Lending Facility, which is being provided by the £3bn UK Export Finance (UKEF) to boost UK exports. UKEF has helped the contractor secure a £75M deal to deliver phase one of the Dubai World Trade Centre District.

     

  8. Bechtel is combining its civil and most of its power business units to create the Bechtel Infrastructure global business unit (GBU). Toby Seay, president of Bechtel’s power business, will become president of the Infrastructure GBU, which will be headquartered in London. Peter Dawson, president of the company’s civil business, will become Bechtel’s head of corporate services and chief financial officer, a position he held previously. Dawson succeeds Mike Adams, who will lead new strategic projects. Bechtel has also created a new unit, Nuclear, Security & Environmental (NS&E), which combines the company’s government and commercial nuclear businesses.

     

  9. Cost of the new Forth Bridge has dropped £50M. Deputy First Minister Nicola Sturgeon has confirmed that the new budget for the Queensferry Crossing and connecting road network is down from a maximum of £1.45bn to £1.4bn. The government said the savings were down to “continued delivery of key construction milestones, successful management of the project and prevailing market conditions.”

  10. Housing Minister Brandon Lewis has announced new powers for councils to help them build affordable homes.The minister confirmed that 22 councils will be able to borrow an additional £122 million over the next two years to deliver over 1,700 new affordable homes and support local growth. But with £178 million still up for grabs, Lewis argued that more councils should be putting themselves forward for the scheme.

If you would like to contact Jackie Whitelaw about this, or any other story, please email jackie.whitelaw@infrastructure-intelligence.com.