Weekly round-up - 15 June 2015

News from the past seven days - parliamentary inquiry into infrastructure and behaviour, Oregon trials road pricing, new station for London, union backing for fracking.

Jackie Whitelaw
14 June 2015

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1. A new parliamentary-led inquiry was launched last week to investigate how greater use of design techniques in the planning and construction of the UK’s built environment may help foster positive behaviour change in local communities. The eight-month inquiry is being conducted by the Design Commission, a cross-party group of parliamentarians and leading representatives from business, industry and the public sector. It will be chaired by Baroness Whitaker and Professor Alan Penn, Dean of the Bartlett Faculty of the Built Environment at University College London. It will seek to discover and showcase case studies and best practice examples of how infrastructure can be used to design for ‘good’ behaviours and how design-led planning policy can create environments in which individuals and communities thrive.

2. M+W Group has been appointed as the lead design and safety case consultant for the Dounreay Shaft and Silo decommissioning project by Dounreay Site Restoration Ltd.  Covering design, safety and environment case development as well as construction management support, this seven year, multi-million pound contract forms an integral part of the programme of works to decommission and restore the Dounreay site. The project will establish new retrieval, processing and packaging facilities that will enable waste from the Dounreay Shaft and Silo to be treated safely and securely, rendering it suitable for long-term storage and future disposal. 

3. HS2 Ltd has appointed Emma Head as corporate health and safety director. She will join from Network Rail where, as director of safety strategy, she led the strategic safety agenda focusing on technology, working practices, culture change, risk management and system safety both internally and across the industry.

With 16 years’ experience in UK rail, Ridley has worked on both the client and contractor side of the industry across major engineering schemes like the West Coast Route Modernisation Project and London’s Crossrail.

 She is expected to start in August and will report directly to Chief Executive Simon Kirby.


4. House prices could rise by 25% according to RICS as stock availbalbe to buy falls to a new low. House prices rose again in May, and at a quicker pace than in April, but the stock of homes for sale fell to a record low since the data series began in January 1978, according to the latest RICS UK Residential Market Survey. While 34% more surveyors saw prices rise in May (the same month in which the Nationwide Building Society estimated that the average price of a home in the UK has now climbed to £195,000), supply to the market declined for the fourth consecutive month with 19% more surveyors reporting a drop in new instructions. “The feedback we are getting in the survey, which points to prices at a headline level rising by another 25% over the next five years, suggests that there is no real confidence that the measures necessary to deliver a meaningful boost to new supply will be put in place anytime soon,” said RICS chief economist Simon Rubinsohn.

5. Morrison Utility Services has announced the appointed of Jim Arnold  as chief operating officer. Arnold joined Morrison Utility Services in 1998 as an Area Manager before being appointed a Director in 2000, Executive Director in 2009 and a Group Board Director in 2013.  

6. The last main piece of London owned by City Hall is to be turned into 2,000 homes and a new railway station under plans to be announced by Boris Johnson, the city’s mayor, according to the Financial Times. The 29-hectare Beam Park site in Dagenham, east London, has scope for 5,000 homes in the wider area, according to estimates by the Greater London Authority. The station will be funded by Network Rail, Transport for London and c2c Rail, including £9M from TfL’s growth fund. 

7. Third Energy UK Gas Ltd has applied to the Environment Agency for permits to carry out fracking at a site in North Yorkshire. The company plans to carry out hydraulic fracturing for shale gas in an existing borehole at Kirby Misperton, near Pickering.

8. UKOOG (the UK Onshore Oil  and Gas organisation) and the GMB union have announced the agreement of a joint charter on shale gas, focusing on safety, skills and supply chain development. This follows adoption of the GMB Congress of a statement on shale gas which states that “if there is a plentiful supply of UK shale gas is it not a moral duty for Britain to provide for our own gas needs from those supplies rather than importing gas from elsewhere”. 

9. Oregon in the US is to trial road pricing to try to plug the shortfall in revenues from fuel tax as cars become more fuel efficient.  A pilot study involving 5,000 motorists starts next month. Volunteers will be charged 1.5 cents (1p) a mile and will be given a credit to offset against the tax they have paid at the petrol pump.

10. Osborne has appointed John Dowsett as managing director of its infrastructure business. He joined Osborne as a graduate civil engineer in 1996 and was most recently MD of Osborne’s Network Rail framework partnership, One Team Wessex.

11. CIHT has presented Crossrail 2 boss Michele Dix with its Institution Award. The award recognises excellence within the transportation profession and celebrates individuals who, through their work,have made a significant contribution that has benefited the public and the profession.

12. An expert panel brought together by Highways England to encourage excellence in road design has met for the first time and pledged to change thinking and place more emphasis on the importance of good design within the road environment. The panel which comprises experts from the fields of architecture, environment, heritage, design and engineering will be a key forum to encourage design excellence. Highways England chief highways engineer Mike Wilson said:

“We’re charged with delivering less congested roads to enable swift, safe and comfortable journeys and it is important to us that our road network fits within its environment.
We’ve already got some great road design and this an opportunity for us to take it a step further – to get input from other experts, which can only be good for Highways England as we set off on the road to becoming an exemplar of good design.”