Get our latest news stories by email, as soon as they're published.
If you book a course in full, we'll give you up to 20% off our standard rates. The course can be made up of individuals from any number of businesses, as long as you have full attendance we will discount the entire group by up to 20%. Offer applies to all training courses booked in August. Please contact us for more information: Book a full course ... more
Business leaders have signed an open letter urging the Chancellor to reconsider scrapping the zero carbon homes target, as outlined in the Government’s Fixing the Foundations report. Co-ordinated by the UK Green Building Council (UKGBC), the letter has been signed by directors and executives from 246 organisations, including Lend Lease, Sir Robert McAlpine, Bouygues, BuroHappold, Willm ... more
Construction firms are being urged to back a campaign aimed at transforming the way businesses recruit, while encouraging them to take on more people from disadvantaged groups. See Potential, launched by the Department for Work and Pensions, is rallying employers to tap into the skills of people including ex-offenders, those overcoming homelessness or addiction, and care leavers. It is b ... more
Major reforms of the planning system aimed at ramping up housebuilding have been revealed and could lead to a raft of new jobs in construction. In a bid to boost the number of new homes, Chancellor George Osborne has announced that developers will automatically be given permission to build on suitable disused industrial land. The measures, part of the Fixing the Foundations initiative aimed ... more
A national construction firm and a glazing contractor have been sentenced after pleading guilty to safety breaches after a worker fell to his death from a store front in Exeter. Philip Evans was working for specialist construction company London Fenestration Trades Ltd, which was contracted by principal contractor, Sir Robert McAlpine to undertake remedial repair works to a glass façade ... more
A Sheffield property and cleaning company was fined for breaching Work at Height regulations. Turbo Property and Cleaning Services Ltd of Wade Street, Sheffield was issued with a Prohibition Notice in November 2014 after an employee was found to be working on a fragile roof with no protection measures in place to prevent them from falling. The company was then found to have breac ... more
Congratulations to Will McKee, Operations manager for Capital Pleasure Boats Limited, July's winner of our F100 competition. Will commented 'We hired one of your nifty 170 machine to carry out inspection works on Charing Cross bridge and Temple pier on London's River Thames, this machine was onboard one of our multipurpose vessel the MVP Shakeddog throughout the works and as always was 1 ... more
The Mobile Elevating Work Platforms (MEWP) Good Practice Toolkit has been updated to include additional guidance about what training is required, in particular expected levels of Powered Access Licence (PAL / PAL+) competence. First published by the UK Contractors Group (UKCG) in January 2014, the toolkit provides guidance for UKCG sites and for the supply chain on how they should plan, mana ... more
Skills shortages are holding back more than half of medium-sized construction firms, according to new research from insurance group Zurich. Some 53% of mid-sized businesses said the lack of trained staff was affecting their ability to take on work, with bricklayers and carpenters cited as being particularly in demand. The poll, for which 200 medium-sized building firms were contacted, sugge ... more
One in five of those responsible for checking cards on construction sites have seen fake certification cards for construction workers in the past year, according to a new survey from the Construction Industry Training Board (CITB) and the Construction Skills Certification Scheme (CSCS). This means that there is a huge risk that unqualified workers are employed on the nation’s construction si ... more
