Mark will be responsible for reviewing current operating processes with the aim of creating best practice solutions for use across the Company.

Mark has an impressive track record with more than 20 years senior level experience in infrastructure and utilities (BAA and EDF), support services, construction, renewables and logistics.

The third generation family-owned business from County Meath in Ireland has invested in a new office near Manchester Airport.

The company, which has a turnover of £7.5m and employs almost 190 people, has expanded into the UK market so it can capitalise on opportunities in healthcare, education, leisure, commercial and residential development sectors.

Manley Construction’s Manchester office will allow the company to target work across the North West, M6 corridor, London, the South West and Home Counties.

The UK team has already secured a place on the Procure Plus New Build Framework. The four year framework will see Manley Construction assisting the regeneration company and its social housing provider consortium members to maintain some 195,000 properties throughout the North West. 

In Ireland the company has clients in both the public and private sectors and has delivered a wide range of projects including several large-scale retail, residential, recreational and commercial schemes such as the development of St Anne’s Golf Club in Dublin Bay and a 70,000 sq ft retail-led mixed use scheme in Athlone.

Gabriel Manley, managing director of Manley Construction UK Ltd, said: “We have a long and proud heritage in Ireland in which we have established ourselves as a key player on mid to large scale projects.

“This is exactly the area where we see significant potential to develop our UK operations from our new base in Manchester. The North West has a world-class construction supply chain which we can tap into and use as a springboard for our growth.”

Best practice and QA are second nature in the construction industry, and it follows that we should apply that discipline to all of our documentation, including email. Teams can grow to include dozens of individuals working on any project, communicating from office, home and while on the road. The potential for losing or missing a vital email or IM message is enormous; and the financial risks to a business are unlimited. 

The oft-quoted example of the cost of ignoring the challenge of email management is the case of Best Buy Stores v Developer Diversified Realty, et al. This US case, still active after several years of litigation, has involved the parties in six-figure costs for tracking down relevant email.  With an effective mail management system, that could probably have been done by an intern in an hour.   In another case, again in the US, lack of documentation on a University project resulted in a settlement for millions of dollars being shared by the architect, engineer and contractor.

The other major financial risk is the cost of time lost searching for emails. A 2011 Oasys Software survey of over 1000 customers active in the construction and civil engineering industries showed that more than a third of employees were losing 2 hours or more a day in tracking down emails that are hard to find. 

We all know that we need to solve the email problem, but we just don’t know where to start. If you ask busy people to adopt a whole new set of rules that might conflict with their established style of working then there is a good chance that the discipline will fade after a few days or weeks. Businesses need to find a solution that sticks.

So what are the key considerations in managing the email mountain once and for all and avoiding huge retrieval costs?

Share it

Structure it

Secure it

Simplify it

Share it by ensuring that all employees understand the need to file all communications on the shared server – whether they are using a PC, a pad or a phone.  Embed doing so in your company processes and rules.

Structure it by creating a filing system that matches the way your business and projects work. No-one else can tell you how to run your business or project, so do not buy into any kind of collaborative working software that constrains your workflow.

Often an important piece of information comes at the end of a long email trail, and the subject line may no longer bear any relation to what is being discussed. That’s where a logical filing system pays dividends. The search features of effective email management will save untold man-hours wasted searching through old emails.

Secure it by managing your own data on servers ideally on your own site or in a trusted cloud storage location. Outages at Blackberry and Google docs have taught us not to reply on third parties for critical data, and the plethora of online tools for collaborative working, each with their different features are of little use for serious project management work.

Simplify it by making the filing process as simple and intuitive as possible.  Even better, make it part of the software people use anyway i.e. Outlook.

Working on some of the world’s most exciting projects from the Beijing Birds Nest Stadium to Brisbane’s award-winning Kurilpa Bridge, Arup’s designers, planners, engineers, consultants and technical specialists cannot afford to have emails going astray. They asked us to help – and we came up with Mail Manager, an Outlook Plug-In that is suitable for firms and teams of any size from 2 to 2,000 or more. So we decided to share it.

The real value of Mail Manager is that it is such a simple add on to Outlook, so it does not change the way people work. It’s downloaded and installed in minutes and, while there are online tutorials, most people can work it out intuitively because the software learns from your behaviors and makes sensible suggestions. Before you know it you’ll be storing every incoming and outgoing email on the company server with a couple of mouse clicks.

More to the point, when anyone on the team needs to check the status of communications on a project they simply use the powerful search tool to find and display all relevant messages with their attachments regardless of whether they were party to all the emails or not.

Oasys  developed Mail Manager from scratch, taking on board the wish lists of engineers and designers from Arup offices around the world and combining all the best ideas. Now anyone can find out who wrote what and to whom within seconds.

A London-based construction company is creating 25 jobs and more training sessions for its employees after it secured a £2.5 million deal for two extra cranes.

Emerson Crane Hire, in Freshwater Road, Dagenham have purchased a 90 tonne crane and a 200 tonne crane which will be presented to them by Germany Company Liebherr in June. The family-run business has also bought half an acre of land opposite their current premises for £500,000 to store equipment and to use as a crane yard.

The new deals are part of a plan to massively expand the business and in the next six months the company will be on the hunt for crane operators, lorry drivers and supervisors.

Operations Director at Emersons, Liam Clancy, said: “We are a national business, looking for local skilled individuals to fill the various vacancies on offer.

“We welcome people from all levels of the trade, and will provide training for anyone if necessary.

“This is a major investment for the company and will provide a big boost for the local economy.”

The business expansion will hopefully mean more job opportunities for unemployed youngsters in the borough, which has one of the highest unemployment rates in London.

Employees will be put through a training programme designed to equip them with further skills in the trade. The less experienced will also learn how to operate machinery and be taught management skills.

On Friday, March 30, Liebherr managing director Richard Everist and Steven Elliott, its UK sales manager, visited the site.

They were joined by Emerson staff and Milton Mckenzie, Barking and Dagenham’s mayor.

The independent company was formed by Edward Clancy in 1991, with family members working as directors and secretaries in the firm.

The business has been at the Dagenham site for eight years, and offers other services to contractors and public companies, such as equipment repairs, specialist transport, manufacturing and testing, and storage and installation.

Mr Clancy believes Emerson’s success is due to the “high quality” service that they offer.

He added: “A strong team equals strong growth, and this is why we are outgrowing our premises.”

Social housing provider Home Group is set to build 23 flats and three houses in Newcastle as part of a £1.6m development.

The homes will help to regenerate the Walker part of the city and will also provide the people who live there with energy efficient properties which will be environmentally friendly and cheap to run.

The work is being carried out by VINCI Construction UK which won the contract to build the properties from Tyneside based Home Group.

Ian Tallentire, Home Group’s director of development, said: “We’re very much looking forward to working with VINCI on this project. It’s important to Home Group to not only create high quality homes but to create neighbourhoods people are proud to live in.

“These properties will help re-generate an area of Newcastle and provide much needed homes for local families.

“The homes will have a high level of eco efficiency which is good for the environment and will help our customers save money.”

Work is due to start on the site at Wellbeck Road within weeks and is expected to be completed early next year. The properties will be timber framed with brick exterior.

At the beginning of 2012 Home Group made a commitment to create more than 200 apprenticeships through a combination of internal roles and requiring contractors to employee apprentices.

Ian added: “Home Group is committed to providing career opportunities for people and providing them with the skills and training they need to flourish. We’ve recently teamed up with the North East Chamber of Commerce to deliver apprenticeship training and we also make it a requirement of our contractors that they provide apprenticeship opportunities for any projects they deliver for us.”

The Wellbeck Road project is also being built as part of the  Greenwood Project – a scheme which gives people the necessary skills to self-build high quality housing.

All the homes will be built to Level 4 of the Code for Sustainable Homes meaning they will have high levels of insulation and energy efficiency.

Chris Hamer, Managing Director, VINCI Construction UK, Building Division-North, commented,

“We are delighted to be working with Home Group and are pleased that work is now getting underway. The scheme provides the opportunity to construct homes of a high standard of sustainability that will meet the current and future needs of those who live in them and also help to protect the environment.”

“By working with Newcastle College, we will provide training opportunities with skilled operatives, qualified tradesman and VINCI Construction UK’s management staff.”

Longcross Construction is a fast-growing company, despite challenging conditions for the UK’s construction sector. In recognition of this success Longcross managing director, John Beament has scooped the top accolade at the Institute of Directors London & South East Director of the Year Awards, where he won Director of the Year for the £100m and over category.

As Director of the Year, John Beament has seen Longcross grow from £118m annual turnover to £263m in the last 12 months.

Longcross’ success, even during difficult trading conditions, is a result of the fresh, delivery-focussed approach it takes to each contract. Notably, every client receives the personal attention of a Longcross board director, throughout the course of a construction project.

“I am delighted to win this award,” said John, “It goes without saying that the construction industry at large has suffered due to the economic climate in recent years. To not only continue building but also to experience such dramatic growth during these challenging times is no small achievement. Longcross’ vision and focus from board level is complemented by a dedicated, energetic and driven team, which underpins this success.”

The award means that John Beament has secured his place at the Institute of Director’s National Director of the Year Awards, to be announced this October. 

The St Vincent New Bridges’ project is run by St Vincent de PAUL, a homeless hostel that supports people who need to have a place to live and that require help to develop their daily living skills.  When the charity acquired the Grade II listed building, a major refurbishment plan was put into action, and St Vincent de PAUL approached Crash for help with materials and construction work.

Francesca Roberts, Chief Executive at Crash explains: “The brief for the magnificent old two storey building encapsulated many areas of work including: making the former priory 'cell' rooms self contained and habitable; providing new individual shower and toilet facilities in each flat; creating new kitchen areas upgraded to accommodate training functions; forming new access ways and structural openings to form linkages with adjacent buildings and spaces; upgrading and replacing the heating, lighting and electrical services, as well as providing new finishing’s and fittings for each room.  A challenging task, but with the help from suppliers, the vision has been realised.”

Knauf Insulation donated over 520m2 of 100mm Earthwool Loft Roll insulation for the project, which was installed by Giraffe Building Services Ltd.  The glass mineral wool insulation product is extremely easy to handle and install, being lightweight and easily cut to size, benefiting the large project.  By its nature, Earthwoll Loft Roll is non-combustible and classified as Euroclass A1 to BS EN ISO 13501-1, a crucial requirement to any public building.

Additionally, Loft Roll insulation has been manufactured with ECOSE Technology, and so benefits from a revolutionary, formaldehyde-free binder technology, based on rapidly renewable materials, instead of petro-based chemicals. It reduces embodied energy and delivers superior environmental sustainability.

The technology has been developed for Knauf Insulation’s glass and rock mineral wool products, enhancing their environmental credentials without affecting the thermal, acoustic or fire performance. Insulation products made with ECOSE Technology contain no dye or artificial colours – the colour is completely natural.

Cliff Akenclose, Project Coordinator at St Vincent de PAUL explains: “We have found Crrash to be extremely professional and they have gone out of their way to help us find the materials needed to give this development a superior finish which anyone would be proud to reside in. Crash has put us in touch with local people who have been in a position to give us high-quality materials at a much reduced price, which in turn has given us the opportunity to have a project which can meet the needs of many disadvantaged people in our area.”

Francesca Roberts adds: “The service from Knauf Insulation has been professional and generous as always.”

The London event will be held on Tuesday May 22nd at One Great George Street in London, home to the Institution of Civil Engineers (ICE), the Belfast event will be held on Thursday 10^th May at The Culloden Estate & Spa and the Dublin event on Tuesday 15^th May at The Carton House Hotel.

The theme of these days is ‘Innovation’ and will see Korec joined by a team of Trimble’s technical experts who will participate in Q & A sessions as well as providing updates on new technology for surveyors, engineers, GIS and geospatial professionals.

The UK and Ireland’s surveyors have long been credited as being both receptive to new technology and adept at turning this technology into productive and income generating tools for their business. Korec’s Technology Days reflect this and have been designed to pull together innovative survey products from a range of worldwide sources and showcase practical examples of how this technology is already being used successfully in the UK and Ireland.

The days will also include two breakout ‘Get the know how’ Q & A sessions to ensure that delegates have the time and opportunity to discuss Trimble developments and other featured technology such as the Faro Focus3D Laser Scanner and Sensefly’s SwingletCAM, with experts within the field.

Prater has been appointed by BAM Construction to develop the roof and façade solution for the new Eastwood High School, in Glasgow.

Construction work is scheduled to begin in mid-April 2012 and Prater will develop and deliver hot melt roofing to a concrete base and a single ply membrane including a metal deck onto which a green roof will be installed.

In terms of the facades for the school, this will involve flat composite cladding, a PPC Rainscreen system and a Corten Rainscreen system onto a propriety carrier system. A Soffit cladding system will also be installed.

"Prater has over 10 years knowledge and experience in the education sector. We are delighted to have been appointed the contract for the New Eastwood High School and look forward to getting work underway," commented Andy Newman, Business Development Director at Prater. 

Blake and Duncumb, who both specialise in the field of engineering services join as Directors and their appointment significantly strengthens Deloitte’s mechanical and electrical expertise in the London commercial market. Both have significant experience of working with blue-chip developers and occupiers.

Bound joins as an Assistant Director, in Deloitte’s corporate occupier team having spend the past 20 years specialising in this field.

Neill Morrison, partner and head of Construction Cost Consultancy for Deloitte said: “We are delighted to welcome people of Steve, Gary and Chris’s calibre and expertise to the firm. Their appointment marks a further step in our ambitious growth plans for the service line and we are particularly excited at the prospect of taking the first steps towards developing an unparalleled M&E cost consultancy offer as part of our overall objective to develop a truly distinctive service to our clients.”

Reconomy has been selected by the Enterprise Group to handle its waste management procurement processes and deliver recycling-led solutions and landfill diversion initiatives to its public sector and utility industry customers nationwide.

The £1 billion Enterprise Group, with over 13,000 people and 150 locations across the UK, has upwards of 40 years experience working with utility and public sector companies providing over 100 front-line services to meet local needs. Its Group Procurement team was charged with sourcing a recycling and waste partner to help meet a target of recycling 90% of waste generated on all its contracts by the end of 2012.

The three year agreement, across both utility and government divisions, will see Reconomy provide a range of services from utility tipping, aggregate supply and hazardous waste disposal right through to nationwide skip hire and general waste and recycling. Reconomy will manage this through its extensive national supplier base of waste and recycling providers.

A key objective for the Enterprise team was to consolidate waste management procurement processes and deliver recycling-led solutions through landfill diversion initiatives without impeding day-to-day operations. To this end, the agreement with Enterprise includes contractual milestones where Reconomy must demonstrate “proof of concept.” Wide-ranging experience of creating bespoke service initiatives for blue-chip clients meant Reconomy could show a track record of solid success and this assured Enterprise of its ability to deliver at each stage.

Cost-efficiency is a prerequisite for any proposed waste management solution and a key factor is effective and reliable monitoring. At the heart of the Reconomy solution is its unique on-line Portal which gives real-time 24/7 measurement and control of recycling and landfill performance – providing the Enterprise Group Procurement team with timely and accurate data on performance and cost in a clear and concise format.

The Reconomy Portal presents users with an intuitive dashboard showing the total group spend on waste plus more detailed regional information such as specific waste stream type and tonnage, and how much has been diverted from landfill. By managing these processes, Enterprise is able to better control its waste costs whilst reducing waste to landfill.

Clark Russell, Regional Procurement Manager for Enterprise explained, “Reconomy’s successful track record of delivering recycling-led solutions gave us the confidence to set up the partnership.

“It is important we partner with a waste provider who leads the way in customer service and recycling, delivering our corporate social responsibility targets, adding value with clear and concise management information. To that end the appointment of Reconomy has been endorsed by our HS&Q and environmental teams.”

Michael Benton, Reconomy’s Operations Director, was instrumental in negotiating the agreement. “At every stage of the negotiations the Enterprise requirement of recycling 90% of all waste by end-2012 was at the forefront,” he said. “Having already achieved similar targets for a large number of our existing Clients, I have every confidence that target will be achieved.”

Enterprise Group Procurement Director, Kevan Jepps, summed up the new arrangement: “The partnership with Reconomy adds another dimension to our business – its dedicated customer service team for all Enterprise enquiries will ensure we deliver the right waste recycling solutions for our contracts while bringing value and economies of scale to our business.”

A new ‘white paper’ exploring the effective design and installation of smoke ventilation systems in apartments has been developed by leading smoke and natural ventilation specialist, SE Controls, which builds on the recent guidance published the Smoke Control Association (SCA).

The comprehensive SCA report entitled ‘Guidance on smoke control to common escape routes in apartment buildings, flats and maisonettes’ was created to not only highlight the objectives and performance criteria of residential systems, but also identify system options, testing and the integration of smoke control with other fire systems.

By publishing its white paper, SE Controls sets out to communicate a number of key critical aspects covered in the SCA report into a more condensed guidance document focusing on smoke ventilation system design, particularly where a standard ‘Approved Document B’ compliant solution may not be possible.

The white paper also recognises the changing legislation and legal obligations on property owners to ensure adequate smoke control and escape provision is made and it is kept well maintained. It also goes beyond the need for safe means of escape and deals with the need for fire fighting teams to access the building safely to attend possible victims and extinguish the fire.

Will Perkins, SE Controls’ Managing Director was part of the SCA group that compiled the original guidance document and is committed to ensuring that effective smoke control is firmly on the building safety agenda. He said: “It’s a well documented fact that asphyxiation from smoke accounts for 80% of all deaths in the event of a fire, yet in multi storey apartments, where escape routes could be inaccessible due to ineffective smoke control, this figure could be disproportionately high. Ultimately the single primary objective of our white paper and the original SCA guidance is to help save lives through understanding the risks and implementing effective solutions to control smoke and aid escape.”

Described as an innovative thinking business, with eight offices across the UK, for the past ten years SES’s accident frequency rate has been below the construction industry average which is a reflection of its proactive and positive approach to health and safety.

Speaking about this latest achievement, Tony Sidwell, head of safety, health, environment and quality at SES, said:

“At SES we are continually evolving our health and safety initiatives and have recently launched our internal, Think Safety campaign.  With robust policies and procedures and good communication as well as a positive and professional attitude, accidents are avoidable as can be evidenced by our RIDDOR free year in 2011.”

SES’s RIDDOR free period was measured between January and December 2011.  In addition to its twice yearly audits, carried out by the British Standards Institute as part of SES’s accreditation to OHSAS 18001, the contractor also implements several internal audits and inspections which are carried out by the company’s SHE Department, board directors, members of the Directors’ Safety Leadership Team and project management teams.

 Mr. Sidwell continued:

“Starting at board level through to our youngest apprentice, health, safety and the environment has to be the responsibility of all and the first thing on everyone’s mind when working on site.  Extending our ‘think safety first’ attitude to our supply chain and all visitors to live sites, will ensure that we continue to operate below the average construction industry accident frequency and I am confident will result in more RIDDOR free years.”

SES is currently operating on a diverse range of projects spanning the education, leisure and commercial development sectors. 

It had to be designed to provide comfortable working conditions and an ideal environment to house one of the world’s most famous lighting collections, whilst minimising energy usage and environmental impact. The designers turned to leading specialists in gas fired heating combining heat recovery, Nordair Niche, for the answer.

Designed and built for the storage, manufacture and refurbishment of Blackpool’s Illuminations – including fibre optics, lasers and illumination exhibits – the new facility spans an impressive 120,000 sq ft. To enable carefully-controlled conditions for such an important large open floor space including a painting plant and fibre glass working area the heating and ventilation system had to be of the highest standard. Nordair Niche supplied its DF7MUA220 (make up air) unit with supply and exhaust air modules including high efficiency cross plate heat recovery and a DF25VAV725 (variable air volume) direct fired gas heater unit to meet the challenge.

The two heating and ventilation units were specially designed to be installed in a plant room, allowing carefully metered fresh tempered air to be delivered directly into the building’s large space interiors through louvered grilles.

A  core part of the Nordair Niche direct fired range, all DF MUA units can be specifically built to meet the needs of the client and can be enhanced with cross plate or thermal wheel heat recovery, variable air volume, cooling, specialist filtration and a customized control system. Horizontally mounted, the CE approved unit can be engineered to extract air from the building recovering waste heat before introducing a supply of heated ‘make up’ air to provide an even, comfortable environment without draughts or cold spots.

The DF VAV variable air volume range incorporates as standard an inverter drive and high efficiency Nordair Niche box burner with integral combustion air fans to maintain optimum performance whilst adapting to meet the changing requirements of the building or changing exhaust rates.

Direct gas-firing is an effective, cost efficient method of space heating and providing tempered make up air for specialised environments. It provides a positive ventilation rate, gently pressurising the building and ensuring a fresh and warm atmosphere with minimal stratification. Nordair Niche’s fully modulating burner system provides the optimum heat required at maximum efficiency, to provide a facility that delivers high quality heating and ventilation with minimal running costs.

Dating back to 1879, the Blackpool Illuminations began with just eight electric arc lamps, steadily growing to become the six-mile long extravaganza of the modern day. With its new state-of-the-art manufacturing facility, and with a cutting edge heating and ventilation system courtesy of Nordair Niche, the Illuminations will continue to grow and become a more impressive spectacle with every year that passes.

The course is based on the CPA Best Practice Guide (BPG) for the Maintenance, Inspection and Thorough Examination of Mobile Cranes and is designed to enable an engineer to examine Liebherr mobile cranes in complete compliance with LOLER98. This course is also a training element which forms part of the requirements to ensure that an engineer is deemed competent in the important skills of mobile cranes examination.

The course content includes:- Compliance with the CPA Maintenance, Inspection and Thorough Examination Best Practice Guide. Provision and Use of Work Equipment Regulations, (PUWER). Lifting Operations and Lifting Equipment Regulations, (LOLER98). Liebherr duty charts and operating instructions. LICCON - rated capacity indicator. LICCON 1 and 2 Practical crane rigging and de-rigging. Technical forum.

The course lasts two days and costs £600 plus VAT per candidate. The course ratio will be six candidates to one instructor

Liebherr-Great Britain Ltd prides itself on delivering the best possible training and assessment schemes currently available in the field of mobile and crawler cranes, lifting and mobile elevated work platforms. As an industry leading crane manufacturer, Liebherr is in a position to offer candidates unrivalled facilities and training expertise from a team of highly experienced, qualified and professional instructors.

Alide Hire Services has invested in the future by opening a new flagship tool hire depot in Bristol and also selected MCS-rm rental software from MCS to run their entire operation.

The new city centre premises cover 20,000 square feet, with a large yard and improved customer facilities, such as a purpose-built shop with a range of accessories for sale, an area where customers’ equipment can be repaired or PAT tested, plenty of parking, a covered drive-in bay and even free coffee. 

Alide has now celebrated thirty successful years of steady growth, and has expanded and improved its business operation in many ways in recent years. It created a new event and toilet hire arm four years ago to complement its tool and small plant business and has recently invested in a new MCS-rm rental software solution to support and grow its successful hire business.

Managing Director Gareth Hayward reports: “We needed a powerful software solution to help us manage the administration of our plant and tool hires, as well as manage our expanding toilet hire fleet and coordinate the toilet servicing schedules. We choose MCS-rm from software specialists MCS and have been very pleased with the decision.”

Gareth continues: “Operationally, we’ve seen a huge improvement. MCS-rm saves us a great deal of time and effort on all the work around contracts, invoices and all other routine, time-consuming tasks that are a necessity in running any hire business.”

Gareth explains some of the benefits that the new hire management system has yielded: “The advanced Transport Manager functionality has been immensely useful. We can see the location of all the toilets that are due for servicing on a particular day and the system plans out the best route. It all works extremely well and eliminates the time previously spent in manually plotting out the service round.”

MCS-rm has also transformed Alide’s storage of hire information, which is now entirely paperless.  Documents such as proposals, delivery tickets, collection notes, waste transfer notes and servicing tickets are printed with a barcode on, scanned in and electronically attached to the contract, giving an instantly accessible audit trail.

Gareth says: “It takes only a couple of minutes to put our hands on information to resolve customer queries, whereas in the past it took quarter of an hour or more to find, photocopy and fax the information out to the customer.  It’s win-win: we save resources while providing the prompt response that our customers value.”

Gareth concludes: “Now with the new depot up and running and the new software solution embedded in the business, we are able to keep the bar high in delivering exceptional service and keep customer satisfaction at the top of our priority list”.   

Yorkshire-based Thomson Ltd has provided asbestos-related services for over 35 years. The specialist is offering an on-site expert assessment of each school's current asbestos procedures and documentation plus the installation of its own iStar Asbestos Management software for a nominal cost of just £1000 (ex VAT).

The Department of Education estimates that more than 75% of UK schools contain asbestos and Thomson's initiative comes after MPs described the situation as a "national scandal" in February. The all-party Parliamentary Group on Occupational Safety and Health called for a scheme to remove the potentially lethal material, for better information for parents, teachers and staff, and for more asbestos management inspections.

This followed a report by the Asbestos in Schools pressure group in October highlighting the deaths of 140 teachers from the rare asbestos-related cancer mesothelioma in the past 10 years. Children are more vulnerable. Research suggests that for every death of a teacher from asbestos-related diseases, nine children could die.

Thomson Ltd chairman Richard Thomson is forthright when it comes to the subject of asbestos. He describes the substance as a plague on his own generation of workers in the engineering and construction industries. Prompted by the latest round of the long-running controversy surrounding asbestos in Britain's schools, he decided to act.

Thomson says: "The key to this crisis is an up-to-date risk register that's available to all interested parties and good planning. After ten years of using iStar Asbestos Management for clients like Leeds City Council, London Waste and Bradford University, we thought it would be a good time to put our money where our mouths were and offer some practical help to schools."

A survey of 16 schools in 2010 by the Asbestos Training and Consultancy Association (ATAC) found none was meeting health and safety rules on managing the substance. In response to the MPs' report on asbestos in schools in February, ATAC said it could provide "literally hundreds" of examples each year where effective management controls had either broken down or were not present at all.

Under the Control of Asbestos Regulations 2006, affected schools should maintain an asbestos risk register plus an asbestos plan that sets out in detail how the risks from asbestos-containing materials will be managed. Dutyholders have to provide accurate information to anyone who is liable to work on or disturb asbestos on its location and condition. Thomson Ltd's iStar Asbestos Management software performs all these roles so that schools can be confident that they comply with HSE regulations.

There can be confusion as to who is responsible as asbestos dutyholder for a school. For many, it is the local authority. However, when budgets for building management have been delegated to the school by their local authority, both parties have dutyholder responsibilities. For academies, free schools, voluntary-aided and foundation schools, the school governors are the asbestos dutyholders.

The Joint Union Asbestos Committee (JUAC), the national asbestos trade union campaign group, is currently fighting government proposals to place the full responsibility on school governors in all state-funded schools. For independent schools, it can be the proprietor, governors or trustees.

The Health and Safety Executive (HSE) says that inhaling asbestos is the single greatest cause of work-related deaths in the UK at around 4,000 each year. In Thomson Ltd's experience, many organisations are not following strict HSE guidelines. There may be little knowledge of the responsibilities of the organisation's asbestos dutyholder or even who the dutyholder is. This is just as common in the public sector as it is in the private sector.

Thomson Ltd's offer of an asbestos management overhaul for £1000 (ex VAT) is open to all primary schools and secondary schools in England.

So when it came to the construction of the new €80 million corporate HQ for a leading Scandinavian airline, it was only fitting that main contractor SRV Rakennus Oy would adhere to a similarly high level of safety.

Whilst erecting the steel framework of the new 68000m2 mixed-use building in the Helsinki-Vantaa Airport area of Finland, SRV Rakennus Oy required a preventative solution that would effectively negate the risk to anyone working at height and to protect the workforce at ground level.

Combisafe supplied 500 of its lightweight and versatile Steel Mesh Barriers. The forerunner in edge protection for over a decade, this temporary fall prevention system was ideal for this steel frame office building with its hollow core concrete slabs. 

Available in two standard sizes 2.6 metres and 1.3 metres, the Steel Mesh Barrier is essentially a guardrail, toeboard and mesh rolled into one and has the added benefit of being able to span trades, accommodating their different edge protection needs at different phases of the construction project. 

This temporary fall prevention system was installed on the slab edge of floors using the Welded Socket. Developed for use in pre-planned edge protection, the socket is welded to the beam and allows work to be carried out on the slab edge.‘The Steel Mesh Barrier proved to be the best solution because it offered protection to the workers at height and against falling objects to the workers below’ said Markku Kallioinen, Site Manager, SRV Rakennus Oy. ‘It was easy and quick to install and gave the site a professional look.’

For more than two decades, Combisafe International has set the standard in safety at height technology, delivering preventative and protective systems for the construction industry. The Steel Mesh Barrier fits perfectly with the company ethos of designing solutions that eliminate or minimise the risk of working at height.

The new corporate HQ has been designed by architects Helin and Co and is set for completion in June  2013.

From April 2012, JPCS will be responsible for footway micro and slurry seal surface treatments covering areas of the Metropolitan Boroughs of Dudley and Sandwell and the City of Wolverhampton.

JPCS maintains the highways and byways of Great Britain and will now be helping to ensure all footpaths are in top condition for pedestrians across the Dudley Borough.

Following a competitive tender, JPCS has been awarded the contract for up to five years and will be carrying out the planned maintenance and ad-hoc works across a 2,700km highway network.

Councillor Patrick Harley, cabinet member for transportation at Dudley Council, said:

“We are pleased to be working in partnership with JPCS to make sure footpaths are well maintained. We were not only impressed with JPCS’s experience and cost effective maintenance solutions but also its green credentials. The business illustrated fantastic examples of CO2 and waste reduction and we will work together to make our borough greener.

“The maintenance methods JPCS use means there will be minimal disruption for local people and work will be carried out quickly. JPCS will also ensure all residents will be regularly informed of any work taking place on their street.”

Peter Shone, managing director at JPCS, said: “We’ve been developing innovative surfacing solutions for more than 30 years and are pleased to be able to offer Dudley Metropolitan Borough Council specialist and sustainable treatments for its highways and footpaths which will save both time and money, and minimise disruption for the residents.”

This enabled floor plates to be constructed more quickly, with less reinforcement material, lower embedded CO2, less labour and with significant health and safety improvements for the rebar fixers.

The Catalyst is a new research and development centre for bioscience start-ups and small businesses that will foster research and promote its commercialisation.  Over 9000 square metres of laboratory, office and meeting space is housed within two buildings designated The Incubator and Accelerator.

Duffy Construction was the contractor for the structural frame.  Seeking to offer a competitive proposal they approached Hy-Ten, about the application of finite element (FE) analysis and Bamtec reinforcement to the floor plates.  Hy-ten referred them to Qube Design, an independent structural design consultancy that is familiar with the application of FE analysis and Bamtec reinforcement.  Qube’s calculations, subsequently verified by project structural engineers Walsh Associates, permitted a 25 per cent saving in reinforcement bar.

Bamtec is made by reinforcement specialist Hy-Ten.  Application starts with the use of FE analysis to precisely define the zones of stress around the vertical columns and within the floor plate.   This process, allied to the fact that Hy-Ten have a greater range of re-bar sizes available, allowed more precise detailing of structural steel.   Reduction in the quantity of steel also directly reduced embedded energy within the building by 42 tonnes carbon equivalent.

Data from the FE analysis was ported to automated machines in the Hy-Ten factory where reinforcement carpets were produced by spot welding each re-bar to flexible tapes in the precise position required.   Each roll of reinforcement was tagged and colour coded in the factory in accordance with the engineer’s floor plan to indicate both the position and depth in the floor slab.  Reinforcement carpets were manufactured and shipped to site to meet Duffy’s stringent fixing and casting programme.

On site, the reinforcement carpets were positioned and simply rolled out in a simple two-man operation.   The need for back breaking labour to manually position and wire-in each bar is eliminated by Bamtec steel reinforcement.  Continual referral back to the engineer’s drawings is not needed as once the carpet is correctly placed all the re-bars on the roll are automatically positioned accurately. 

Bamtec enabled Duffy to save 30 percent on labour and still complete each floor plate in less time than with conventional methods.  The Bamtec system is greatly appreciated by re-bars fixers who are less prone to back strain and injury.