Weekly round-up 23 July 2014

Philip Dilley confirmed at Environment Agency, Government goes electric and HS2 team off to Birmingham, all in this week's round-up.

Jackie Whitelaw
23 July 2014

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1. Former Heathrow Airport chief executive Colin Matthews has been appointed as non-executive chairman of the Highways Agency. Matthews spent six years at BAA which was renamed as Heathrow Airport Holdings in 2012. He will take over the post of HA chair from Alan Cook in September and be paid 130,000 for a minimum 78 days work a year

2. Government is to beef up the numbers of ultra low emission vehicles by purchasing 150 plug in electric cars in the first wave of a new scheme, transport minister Baroness Kramer has said. 

3. HS2’s new construction headquarters is to be Two Snowhill in Birmingham’s Colmore Business District. A major fit out will be carried out ready for work to start in 22 months, with up to 1500 jobs expected to be created in the city.  The move is the largest ever public sector relocation to Birmingham.

4. The appointment of former Arup boss Philip Dilley as chair of the Environment Agency has been confirmed by the Environment, Food & Rural Affairs Committee. He will take up his £100,000 a year, two to three day a week post in September. 

5. More than 66,000 jobs have been created in the UK by foreign businesses over the past year, government figures show. More than 1773 projects were set up with the US, Japan, France and Germany leading the way. More than half of the inward investment was in energy or infrastructure schemes.

6. Labour leader Ed Miliband has said that the party would let the public sector challenge private rail operators to take on the running of franchises. He argues it would improve services and make sure there was British competition to foresight companies in bids to run the country’s trains. 

7. Tesco is planning to build 4000 homes on land it had previously bought to expand its supermarkets, according to reports, following a change in shopping habits and growth in online purchases. It could build the homes itself or sell the land to property developers.

8. Hong Kong business MTR has won the deal to operate Crossrail trains from 2019. MTR also operates the London Overground concession with Arriva UK Trains as well as running the metro system in Hong Kong.

9. Welsh transport minister Edwina Hart is standing by the decision to invest £1bn in new motorway to the south of Newport given the go ahead last week, despite opposition from members of the cross party environment committee. 

10. WYG has been appointed as a partner in a consortium, led by AMEC, that has been appointed as preferred bidder for Poland’s first nuclear power plant. The contract, expected to be confirmed in the next few weeks, will be worth a minimum of £6.2M to WYG, rising to £35M if optional work is undertaken over the 10 years of the job.