Weekly news round-up - 2 April 2014

Your rapid update on the week's infrastructure stories.

  1. Gregory Hodkinson has taken over the role of Arup Chairman. He is joined by deputy chairmen Tristram Carfrae and David Whittleton. Together they will lead a global group of more than 11,500 staff members with turnover in excess of £1bn. Hodkinson joined Arup in 1972 and worked on major urban development and transport projects in Australia and the UK, before leading the firm’s expansion in the USA in 1988 as a Founding Principal of the New York office. Hodkinson became Chairman of the Americas Region in 2004 and in 2011 moved to Milan to lead the firm’s European business.

  2. HS2 ltd has launched a supplier survey to help gauge whether the potential supply chain is ready to work to Level 2 Building Information Modelling (BIM) procuring and managing data for the design, build, operation and maintenance of the new high speed rail link. The survey is open to any company planning to bid for work on the project and is not a formal part of the procurement process. HS2 has appointed Mace to run the survey as part of a larger BIM Up-skilling Study.

  3. Network Rail this week starts spending the £38.5bn at its disposal in control period 5. Works will include electrifying more than 1,300km of railway and transforming hundreds of stations including London Bridge, Birmingham New Street and Manchester Victoria. More than 7,000km of track will be renewed, and 300,000 sq m of station platform replaced. The company is facing a £70M plus fine from the rail regulator for too many late running trains. Meanwhile DfT and Tfl have announced that Crossrail is to be extended to Reading and Twyford.

  4. Consultation has opened on a major review of the Construction (Design and Management) Regulations 2007. The ten-week consultation will gauge the industry’s reaction to proposed changes including replacing the CDM co-ordinator role with a principal designer role. The consultation is open from 31 March until 6 June 2014. The full document can be found here

  5. The UK Green Investment Bank (GIB) has today announced two equity investments in the UK offshore wind sector totaling £461M. GIB is investing alongside Japan's Marubeni Corporation to jointly purchase a 50% stake in the Westermost Rough offshore wind farm, from DONG Energy. GIB is committing £241M to the around £500M transaction. The Westermost Rough project, currently in the early stages of construction off the coast of Yorkshire, will utilise Siemens' next generation 6MW direct drive turbines which are almost twice the size of the majority of wind turbines operating in UK waters. This is the first time that GIB has taken construction risk in an investment. GIB has also agreed to acquire a 10% stake in the Gwynt y Môr offshore wind farm – the largest under construction in Europe, from RWE Innogy. The purchase price is £220M.

  6. NI Water has gone out to tender with a six year construction and civil engineering contract worth up to £200M for four delivery partners. The work will include the construction and renovation of water mains of various diameters and ancillary works across Northern Ireland.

  7. FIFA is showing its thanks to Brazil’s construction industry by handing out nearly 50,000 World Cup tickets to workers involved in building or refurbishing the 12 stadiums. The tickets cover all the first-round games with the exception of the opening match between Brazil and Croatia on 12 June in São Paulo.

  8. A £170M investment package has been confirmed by First Minister Alex Salmond for the Inverness to Aberdeen railway. Over the next five years, there will be a redoubling of the track between Aberdeen and Inverurie. Platforms at Insch and Elgin will be extended to accommodate six-car trains. Signalling improvements will be made at Elgin, the station at Forres relocated and work done so new stations can be built at Kintore and Dalcross close to Inverness airport.

  9. Scotland generated a record amount of electricity from green energy sources last year, according to new figures. Renewable power projects produced a total of just over 17,000GWh of electricity in 2013, a rise of 16.4% on the previous year. That means about 46.5% of Scotland's energy needs came from sources such as wind or hydro power.

  10. Dredging of one of the major rivers in the Somerset Moors and Levels began on Monday, the Environment Agency said. Initial work is on a 200m stretch of the River Parrett gets ahead of dredging of an eight kilometre stretch of river near where the Tone and Parrett meet at Burrowbridge.