Weekly news round-up - 5 February 2014

Your rapid update on last week's infrastructure stories

Thomas Paterson
06 February 2014
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  1. Network Rail has appointed four suppliers to deliver its £2bn programme to electrify more than 2000 miles of Britain’s railway over the next seven years. The successful bidders are Balfour Beatty, AmeyInabensa, CarillionPowerlines and ABC Electrification. Meanwhile Network Rail infrastructure’s finance boss David McLoughlin is quitting to run Spencer Rail.

  2. New chief executive of the Major Projects Authority is former BP executive John Manzoni, the Cabinet Office has announced. Manzoni was most recently president and chief executive of Canadian oil and gas company Talisman Energy. The MPA was set up in 201ll to turn round poor project management in government.

  3. From April water companies will have to have more non executive members on their boards than executives or investors, Ofwat has confirmed. Audit and remuneration committees should also have a majority of independent board members. The move is part of a drive to make water companies improve their board leadership, transparency and governance, Ofwat said.

  4. HS2 boss David Higgins told the Daily Telegraph that building HS2 is essential for the survival of Britain’s rail network painting a picture of passengers queuing to get on main line trains as they do for packed rush hour Tubes. And he said costs could be cut by starting construction in the north and south at the same time.

  5. Cuadrilla chairman Lord Browne has said the UK needs 40 fracking wells and five years to discover whether the country has a viable shale gas industry. The company is applying for planning permission to drill and frack at two new sites at Roseacre Wood and Little Plumpton near Blackpool.

  6. The first low level traffic signals designed specifically to improve road safety for cyclists have been installed at Bow roundabout in London following extensive trials carried out by Transport for London and Transport Research Laboratory.Cyclist eye level signals have been commonplace in part of Europe for years but have never been used in the UK before.

  7. Development Securities has secured funding for the first phase of its £85M mixed use scheme at Cross Quarter next to Abbey Wood Crossrail station. The Crossrail project also announced its tunnelling marathon is now 70% complete with 30km of tunnels constructed under London.

  8. Environment Agency chairman Lord Smith has suggested that one long term solution to flooding in the Somerset Levels could be to hold back water higher up the catchment. Prince Charles visited the scene this week and described the situation and response to the flooding as a "tragedy".

  9. DCLG has awarded 26 local authorities over £1.9M to support development of heat network projects using energy from waste or heat from landfills through the government’s Heat Networks Delivery Unit. Estimates show that 14% of UK heat demand could be met by heat networks by 2030.

  10. The UK economy is predicted to have grown to above its pre-recession peak in 2008 by the summer, economists say, based on GDP estimates.