
Laing O’Rourke full pay pregnancy leave for all
Laing O’Rourke is offering full paid leave for 6 months for workers in both UK & Australia where the firm operates.
The policy line ‘any gender, any birth, any child’ extends to all workers and includes a pregnancy loss policy.
CEO, Ray O’Rourke said:
“When I joined the industry more than 50 years ago, I saw my own role as the traditional family breadwinner.
“The world is now a very different place, and we value modern and diverse family structures and new opportunities that balance careers and childcare.
“I’ve always been an advocate for innovation and modern methods of construction, and those approaches should not just be in the technical ways we work – but in the ways we recruit, deploy, reward, and support our people.”
In England, statutory maternity pay is 90% of the salary for only 6 weeks after the birth which decreases to £156.66 or 90% of their salary (whichever is lower) for the next 33 weeks, so the new Laing O’Rourke policy is an enormous difference to any English worker planning a family in terms of salary.
Balfour Beatty fundraising for homelessness

Balfour Beatty in Scotland is aiming to raise £140,000 for homelessness & addiction charity Steps to Hope.
Recently an activity sold 8.5 tonnes of recycled material to raise money with partner Anixter with all proceeds donated to the charity.
More than 4525 are currently homeless in Edinburgh which is an increase of 30% on pre-pandemic levels.
BAM launches EV charging business

Bam Nuttal has launched an EV charging infrastructure department to work with enterprise to develop solutions for electric vehicle charging infrastructure.
The new department ‘will work with developers, local authorities, and organisations to design and install EV charging solutions in construction, retail, commercial, leisure, schools and colleges, transport hubs, hotels and sporting venues.’
Great Britain has 49 chargers per 100,000 people but London has almost 7 times for than Northern Ireland which is a huge disparity.
Data on global ev chargers per capita is elusive.
Silvertown Tunnel Boring Machine cutter head lowered into shaft

It was an exciting week for the Silvertown tunnel team as the Tunnel Boring Machine cutter head was lowered into the shaft ready for action. At 12m it is the largest of its type in the UK and almost 3 double decker buses in diameter.
The first London tunnel in more than 30 years, the machine will bore a 1.4km tunnel under the Thames linking Silvertown & the Greenwich Peninsula to open in 2025 which will ease traffic in the Blackwall tunnel and enable cross-river buses.
The work is being undertaken by Bam Nuttall, Ferrovial Construction and SK Ecoplant jv with Keltbray awarded the sustainability feasibility.
The Tunnel Boring Machine weighs 1,800t and awaits the cutter underground where it was lowered in pieces last month, ready to be assembled.
£3bn Sellafield decommissioning

The £3bn decommissioning of the nuclear site in Cumbria will be awarded in 4 lots that will run for up to 15 years.
Although the station was closed in 2003, Nuclear fuel reprocessing only stopped on 17th July 2022, when the reprocessing plant completed its last batch of fuel after 58 years of operation.
Sellafield never reached the capacity of energy generation first published; it discharged radioactive waste into the sea and a fire caused 240 cancers in the area of which 100-240 were fatal. In 2007 it was found that organ tissue removal of 65 dead nuclear plant site workers had been removed without relatives consent.
More information https://sharedsystems.eu-supply.com/app/rfq/publicpurchase_docs.asp?PID=15758&LID=19068&AllowPrint=1 or apply here https://www.find-tender.service.gov.uk/Notice/010690-2022?origin=SearchResults&p=1
Yorkshire regeneration winners announced

£600m Yorkshire regeneration project has announced minor works winners for five lots with works up to £4m for build & refurbishment and up to 25 housing units.
The lots were awarded based on modern methods of construction, carbon reduction & targets & sustainability scoring.
Internet Connectivity For New, Temporary And Challenging Locations…
For new, temporary and challenging locations why not consider the EMS i-MO OptiBond solution? Delivers fast / resilient aggregated 4G, 5G and / or fixed line services to site in days. The system is widely used on difficult to serve and new commercial and infrastructure projects. Contact https://ems-uk.com/contact-us/