Author Archives: Charlotte Banks

Galliford Try has won an £87m contract to deliver 286 build-to-rent homes as part of a mammoth regeneration scheme in north London. The homes will form part of Brent Cross Town, an £8bn mixed-use neighbourhood covering 180 acres. The three new blocks, containing a mix of market-rent and discount-market-rent homes,…

Mace has been appointed as the preferred contractor on a new headquarters for the European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts (ECMWF). The firm signed a preconstruction services agreement (PCSA) to lead on the procurement of the design for the new headquarters, which will be situated at the University of Reading’s…

Skanska has topped October’s contractor league table with a single contract win – a £158m data-centre fit-out job. The firm will install electrical plant, air conditioning, ventilation, lifts and a roof gantry at Telehouse South in London’s Docklands for data-centre provider Telehouse. Skanska previously carried out an early works package…

Industry body Constructing Excellence and King’s College London have launched an independent voluntary verification scheme for construction-procurement quality. The Constructing the Gold Standard verification scheme will check claims made by framework providers and clients who procure their own frameworks and alliances, with an emphasis on better value and net zero.…

A building owner found guilty of missing a deadline to remove unsafe cladding has been ordered to pay a total of £60,000. Chaplair Limited was successfully prosecuted on 18 October by Newham Council over delays in remediating a building in East London. On Tuesday (31 October) the company was handed…

Mace Group has announced the management buyout of its facilities-management arm Mace Operate, which has now rebranded as Macro. The buyout was led by Mace Operate chief executive Ross Abbate and chief financial officer Chris Bampton. Mark Holmes, who announced in September that he would step down as Mace’s deputy…

Netherlands-based private equity firm Mutares has acquired modern methods of construction specialist Byldis UK for an undisclosed sum. The UK firm spun out of the Hurks group (also based in the Netherlands) in 2018 and now employs more than 400 people with a head office in London. Mutares invests in…

Sally Cox has been appointed as managing director of EKFB, the joint venture between Eiffage, Kier, Ferrovial Construction and Bam Nuttall. She will be responsible for overseeing 80km of HS2’s first phase between the Chiltern Tunnel and Long Itchington Wood. Cox said: “It’s an engineer’s dream to work on a…

Balfour Beatty has been selected to build a £67.8m Passivhaus-accredited secondary school in Edinburgh. The UK’s largest contractor will build a replacement campus for Liberton High School, whose existing building is being demolished after a 12-year-old girl was crushed to death when a wall collapsed in 2014. The mixed-use campus…

Van Elle Holdings has bought Galliford Try’s specialist piling business Rock & Alluvium in a deal worth up to £3.8m. Van Elle made an initial payment of £1.8m, with £2m payable 12 months from completion, subject to completion accounts. The firm will acquire 11 piling rigs and take on Rock…