Buildings

The opening of a new £365m entertainment venue has been postponed due to issues with its electrical systems. The Co-op Live Arena in Manchester, set to become the UK’s largest indoor venue, was built by Bam Construct with Wates-owned SES Engineering Services delivering mechanical and electrical works. Test events were…

Higgins has won a £75m contract to deliver 189 Passive House-certified homes for housing association Peabody. The job, won by the firm’s Higgins Partnerships arm, in Deptford, south-east London, is said to be one of the largest Passive House-certified developments planned in the UK. It is Peabody’s first foray into…

A Bath-based housing association is looking for contractors to build and develop new homes over the next four years. Curo, one of the South West’s biggest landlords, is looking to build 2,000 homes by 2027. Contractors have until midday on 28 May to submit tenders for one of three framework…

Liverpool City Council has put contractors on alert for £850m in planned highways work. The authority has launched a pre-market engagement exercise to glean feedback on its proposed framework. The framework is expected to be in place from late January 2025 and run for up to four years. A maximum…

CN100 contractors Equans, Morgan Sindall, Seddon and Wates have joined a swathe of smaller firms to land places on a £2bn public sector housing framework. A total of 66 contractors were appointed to the four-year Communities & Housing Investment Consortium (CHIC) framework, which is designed to help local authorities and…

Tier one contractors Kier, Morgan Sindall and Tilbury Douglas have gained places on a major decarbonisation framework. The four-year agreement from Pagabo will cover decarbonisation works across all sectors in the UK except the healthcare sector, which was covered in a separate Pagabo framework announced earlier this month. Work will…

Vinci Building is carrying out the expansion and renovation of the Belfry Hotel and Resort in the West Midlands. Construction News understands the deal is worth approximately £40m to the contractor. Work is underway on the project that will see the Warwickshire resort, best known for having hosted the Ryder Cup…

Both client-side bodies running the programme to repair the Palace of Westminster are losing their chief executives simultaneously, Construction News has learnt. David Goldstone, chief executive of the UK Parliament Restoration and Renewal (R&R) Delivery Authority, submitted his resignation at the end of March, although a leaving date has not…

Work to repair parliament’s tallest structure, the Victoria Tower, faces a year’s delay due to a botched procurement process, Construction News can reveal. Last May, parliamentary authorities launched a tender for a £95m job to repair the tower’s crumbling masonry, windows, cast-iron roof, rainwater drainage and flagpole. However, bidders for…

Bowmer & Kirkland, GMI and Vinci are among 20 companies to have secured places on a £260m construction works framework with the University of Manchester. The firms were chosen under a four-year deal to carry out works across the university’s estate, include demolition, new-build, refurbishment and decoration, as well as…