Weekly news round-up - latest

Sellafield awards £1.7bn encapsulation project, new DCLG permanent secretary and £2M funding up for grabs for good collaboration ideas.

Jackie Whitelaw
08 January 2015

Twitter FacebookLinkedIn

Print

1. A joint venture of Atkins, Mace and Areva has formally signed the £1.72bn contract for the silos direct encapsulation plant project at Sellafield. The AMA joint venture was selected as preferred bidder in April 2014. The silos direct encapsulation plant project involves processing intermediate level waste recovered from one of the oldest nuclear waste silos on the Sellafield site, the Magnox Swarf storage silo, then packaging it for long-term storage.

2. The government has announced the areas shortlisted to become the first flagship housing zones in England to help provide thousands of new homes across the country. A shortlist of 29 areas outside London has been published each of which have bid to become one of 10 housing zones, where it will be easier and quicker to build new homes on brownfield land. More here

3. Melanie Dawes has been appointed as the new Permanent Secretary for the Department for Communities and Local Government replacing Sir Bob Kerslake who retires at the end of February. Dawes is currently the head of the Economic and Domestic Secretariat in the Cabinet Office.

4. Businesses with good ideas for how to encourage more integrated, collaborative supply chains in the construction industry could win a share of £2M in a competition from Innovate UK. It expects projects to last six to 12 months with total costs ranging from £50,000 to £150,000. The competition opens on 9 March with a deadling for registration of 15 April. More information here

5. Edinburgh is set to be Scotland’s first 20mph city following public consultation last autumn, which saw significant backing for the proposals. More than 80% of Edinburgh's roads, including the whole of the city centre, would be included.  The plans go before members of the council's transport and environment committee for approval on 13 January.

6. Lydd Airport in Kent has gone out to tender for a 294m extension of its runway to handle aircraft up to the size of Boeing 737s and Airbus 319s. In all the airport is investing £25M in development including a new terminal.

7. HS2 Ltd has appointed former Lend Lease procurement and supply chain chief Nigel McKay as its new head of construction procurement. First contracts will be let this year.

8. New Balfour Beatty chief executive Leo Quinn who started this month is set to earn what could be as much as a £10.5M share bonus if he delivers results.

9. A Costain and Skanska joint venture has won the last Crossrail tunnelling contract, worth £40M, which is to build the Paddington Link Tunnel between the Bakerloo Line Underground platforms and the new Crossrail station at the London main line terminus.

10. According to the the Highways Agency, 85% of drivers using the Dartford Crossing have paid the remote toll, introduced in November.  But 15% or 300,000 journeys did not pay the toll before the deadline of midnight the day after crossing. The Agency is giving each driver contacted for the first time an extra 14 days to pay for trips made without penalty.