Author Archives: Will Ing

Bam Construction is looking for a new northern regional director after incumbent John Phillips has retired.  Phillips started his career as a civil engineer, working as a subcontractors’ site agent, before joining Bam in 1989. He led the construction of the Leeds Arena (pictured) and other major projects, becoming director…

Beard has started work on a £9.2m job to create a Central African forest habitat at Bristol Zoo.  The facilities will include a new gorilla house, crocodile house and a parrot aviary as well as an outdoor space for gorillas featuring a moat - with the gorillas set to enjoy…

The UK’s ninth-largest contractor has been sold for an undisclosed sum.  M Group Services, which turned over £1.86bn in its 2022/23 financial year, will officially have a new private equity owner in autumn upon completion of the deal between seller PAI Partners and buyer CVC.  The infrastructure contractor has 11,000…

A small North East contractor has been fined after a 16-year-old worker was exposed to asbestos.  The unnamed teenager was working for P Turnbull Joinery & Building Services Ltd when exposed to the potentially cancer-causing material in June 2021, according to the Health and Safety Executive (HSE).  The Wolsingham-based contractor…

The High Court has ordered a tier two contractor to pay £102,000 to a plumbing subcontractor following a dispute about works on a Bouygues-led university project in West Sussex.  Mechanical, electrical and plumbing subcontractor J&B Hopkins was appointed by Bouygues as the subcontractor for the University of Brighton’s Moulsecoomb Campus…

Balfour Beatty chief executive Leo Quinn has said he would be “embarrassed” if the company does not double its roughly 2 per cent margin “in the current environment”.  Speaking on The Investor Download Podcast, published by asset manager Schroders, Quinn also said the UK’s largest contractor is undervalued given major…

Cruden Homes and City of Edinburgh Council have submitted plans for the first phase of a £1.3bn “sustainable new coastal town” in the Scottish capital.  The Scottish housebuilder and local authority are working in partnership to overhaul part of a vast brownfield site to the north west of Edinburgh’s city…

Sir George Iacobescu will retire from the board of Canary Wharf Group (CWG) on 1 July, 36 years after he started working on the regeneration of the Isle of Dogs.  Iacobescu is widely credited with turning the destitute former Docklands site into a powerful financial hub, originally as an executive…

Mace chief executive Mark Reynolds has said government intervention is needed to get rid of retentions as there is not enough support for the measure in industry.  Speaking on Construction News’s First Site podcast, the co-chair of the Construction Leadership Council (CLC) acknowledged that his efforts to remove standard retentions…

United Utilities has named 18 companies which will undertake £2.75bn of works between 2025 and 2030.  Earlier this month the North West water company named seven partners, including Kier, Costain and Murphy, which it said would oversee delivery of £3bn of major infrastructure works during the period.  Now United Utilities…