News round-up - week ending 24 October

Shortlisted contractors for first A9 dualling job revealed, Big Bang fair seeks volunteers and Science Museum to open Engineer Your Future exhibition in time for Christmas holidays.

Jackie Whitelaw
24 October 2014

Twitter FacebookLinkedIn

Print

1. Transport Scotland has announced the names of four bidders competing to win the circa £50M contract to deliver the first A9 dualling scheme for the 8km stretch between Kincraig and Dalraddy.They are: BAM Nuttall/John Sisk; Farrans Construction/Roadbridge, Morrison Construction and Wills Bros/John Paul Construction.

2. The Big Bang Fair is looking for volunteers for its events in 2015. The flagship event, The Big Bang UK Young Scientists & Engineers Fair will be held at The NEC in Birmingham on 11 – 14 March 2015. But there is also a programme The Big Bang Near Me events which take place across the UK to enable young people to discover close to home the exciting and rewarding science and engineering careers. Find out more about volunteering at http://www.thebigbangfair.co.uk/volunteers/

3. A new exhibition, called Engineer Your Future, will open at the Science Museum on 17 December. Visitors will be able to put their problem solving skills to the test and get inspired by engineering through the use fun, interactive gaming and digital experiences that bring to life the skills engineers use every day. And they will hear some of the fascinating stories from women and men who work in engineering today. Engineer Your Future is supported by National Grid, the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills, ABB, BT, EDF Energy, IBM, Mott MacDonald, and Network Rail, with additional support from the Royal Academy of Engineering and Tomorrow’s Engineers.

4. A consortium consisting of Van Oord, Royal Boskalis Westminster, NMDC (Abu Dhabi) and Jan de Nulhas has won a $1.5bn contract to expand the Suez Canal.  The project will widen the existing canal and deepen it to 24m. It will also create a 50km “dual carriageway” passage to enable ships to transit in both directions at the same time.  

5. Farmers will lose their right to claim subsidies for fields filled with solar panels under new plans to ensure more agricultural land is dedicated to growing crops and food. The change will come into effect from January 2015.

6. Balfour Beatty has negotiated an extra £36M payment for its Olympic Stadium conversion contract. Technical problems with the roof structure required steel contractor William Hare to carry out extra strengthening work. This has driven the original project cost up by nearly a quarter to close to £190M.

7. Mark Thurston has been appointed as the European managing director for CH2M HILL taking over from Mark Fallon, who now serves as the corporate vice president for facilities & urban environments. Thurston previously served as CH2M HILL’s director of operations for Europe based at its regional headquarters in London, United Kingdom. He has spent the majority of the last three years managing the Programme Partner joint venture known as Transcend on the Crossrail project in London. 

8. The Labour Party has published a strategy for boosting tourism which includes a commitment to make a swift decision in 2015 on the Davies Commission recommendations regarding a new runway.

9. Expectation is that go ahead will be given for construction of a road tunnel underneath Stonehenge in the Autumn Statement this December.

10. Sales of electric cars and other plug-in vehicles continue to increase, with a record number of people taking advantage of government grants. The Plug-in Car Grant reduces the price of ultra low emission vehicles (ULEVs) by up to £5,000 for cars and £8,000 for vans, making them more affordable for the public and businesses. Between July and September 2014, over 5,000 grants were provided, more than double the number than in the previous 3 months and almost a third of all grants since the scheme was launched in 2010. There are now over 17,000 grant funded ULEVs on the UK’s roads.