Weekly news round-up - 9 April 2014

Simon Ridley replaces Sir Michael Pitt at Planning Inspectorate + more in our update of the week's infrastructure news.

  1. Simon Ridley, a director at the Department for Communities and Local Government, to become new chief executive of the Planning Inspectorate. Ridley joined the department in 2010 as director of local government finance and previously worked at HM Treasury, working on public spending, growth and productivity. He will take over from July when Sir Michael Pitt steps down.

  2. Date of the Second Reading of the HS2 hybrid Bill had been confirmed as Monday 28 April. With hybrid Bills there are additional stages between Second Reading and Committee Stage - the Petitioning Period and Hearing of Petitions by a Select Committee – which will be set during the Second Reading. Current indication is that a two week period to 16 May will be allowed for petitioning by organisations and three weeks to 22 May for individuals.

  3. Better safeguards need to be implemented if harmful environmental impacts of HS2 are to be minimised, the Environmental Audit Committee has warned in its report, "HS2 and the environment". Parliament, in its capacity as the planning authority for HS2, the report says, should ensure that everything possible is done to limit damage to ancient woodlands and SSSIs and that where loss is genuinely unavoidable, that compensation is applied to the fullest extent possible.

  4. Infrastructure costs for major transport schemes are set to grow over the next five years as projects face rising labour and material prices, RICS is forecasting. The institution suggests civil engineering tender prices could see a 24% rise by the end of 2018, with construction demand and strengthened labour bargaining positions providing more leverage to negotiate higher wages. Further rises in wages are expected despite a 3% increase being negotiated for workers in 2014 and 2015, with agreements for a 4% rise anticipated in 2017 and 2018. While civil engineering tender prices have already risen to 12% above their pre-recession peak, price rises are set to moderate to between 3% and 5% over the next five years.

  5. Road Surface Treatments Association is calling for a fundamental rethink of local road funding following release of the latest Annual Local Authority Road Maintenance (ALARM) survey which revealed that the cost of restoring the road network has risen to £12bn. This is an increase of £1.5bn from last year and is believed to be due to the impact of this winter’s record rainfall and flooding.  Government has announced an extra £340M for road repairs. Howard Robinson, RSTA chief executive said: “The odd funding announcement here and there does little to address the real problem which is the need for a fundamental rethink of funding availability that sees local authorities having budgets that enable long-term, cost-effective road maintenance rather than short-term expensive patch-ups”.

  6. New borrowing powers will enable councils to build up to 10,000 affordable homes. From this week councils can bid for a share of £300M of extra borrowing, which will be made available through an increase in their housing revenue account borrowing cap, and invested in new affordable housing over two years from 2015.

  7. Work is set to start on the A47 Postwick junction in Norwich at the end of this month, after the Department for Transport released the £19M needed for the project. The scheme, which is crucial to the Norwich Northern Distributor Road, is known as the Postwick Hub and is set to bring homes and businesses to the area east of the city.

  8. Completion of the Barry Island Link Road has been brought forward by at least five years following a £2.1M interest free loan from the Welsh Government via the local council to developer the Housing Consortium led by Persimmon Homes. The road, which forms part of the £230M Quays’ housing development on Barry Waterfront, is now expected to open in 2015.

  9. Plans to turn the Government estate as well as factories, supermarkets and car parks into “solar hubs” have been outlined in a new solar strategy by energy minister Greg Barker.

  10. Mott MacDonald is to design a new £120M quay at Port of Gdansk in Poland for Deepwater Container Terminal Gdańsk.  The upgraded terminal will be capable of handling 3M TEU (twenty-foot equivalent container units) a year.