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Scott Wilson, The design and engineering consultancy, revealed revenues of £159.3 million in its interim results down from £173.2m for the same period last year. However its operating profit was up 13.9 per cent to £11.5million, and its adjusted operating profit up 4.2 per cent to £12.5million
Commenting on the results chairman Geoff french said “The first six months of the year have seen a return to a more stable trading environment following the impact of the recession at the end of the last period. Although the UK market remains relatively weak, Scott Wilson has benefited from the government’s ongoing commitment to roads and railways and its focus on renewable energy due to our expertise in those areas. The international business continues to go from strength to strength, reflecting the benefits of years of investment outside the UK and the brand recognition we have established in key regions together with the new management structure we have implemented globally....Notwithstanding the economic uncertainty, our diversified business model, strong order book and financial strength continue to give us confidence that we can respond effectively to market developments and opportunities as they arise.”
Three companies have been shortlisted for a £2billion PFI deal to improve and maintain roads in Sheffield.Amey, a consortium led by Carillion, and a consortium led by Colas are all in the running and will now be required to submit detailed bids in December.
The contract is to improve and maintain over 2,000km of road, 65,000 streetlights, over 350 bridges and other structures and 35,000 highway trees across the city over 25 years
The improvement works will take place between 2011 and 2018.
Sheffield City Council is following the Competitive Dialogue process which will continue until early 2011 when a preferred bidder is chosen.
 Design and Engineeing Consultant WSP has won a contract from Network Rail to work on a £300million rail link in central Scotland.The firm will act as an independent planning monitor on the construction of a connection between Airdrie and Bathgate.
The scheme will involve upgrading existing links between Bathgate and Edinburgh and Airdrie and Drumgelloch. Speaking to Building Magazine, Andrew Mitchell, senior consultant at WSP Environment & Energy, said: “This is the first time that such a role has been undertaken in Scotland, and so represents a groundbreaking opportunity for WSP...We look forward to working with Network Rail and the appointed contractor to ensure that this development is implemented to the highest environmental standards.” Ron McAulay, Network Rail director for Scotland, added: “This is a huge project and it presents us with some real environmental challenges whether they are related to minimising the effects of construction traffic, protecting wildlife along the route or designing out the noise and vibration from the new line.” Construction is due to start early next year and complete by the end of 2010. A contractor is yet to be appointed.
The latest Survey from the Civil Engineering Contractors' Association shows the industry workload trends splitting on size grounds. Large firms employing 600 or more people reported a positive balance in workloads with +6 per cent of contractors enjoying more work than the previous quarter. A level of 0 represents no change in the amount of work. Things are getting much worse for smaller companies with workloads falling across the board. Railways and harbours continue to be bright spots but the worst sectors hit are preliminary works, gas, communications, airports and electricity.
Rosemary Beales, CECA director, said: “This survey confirms the poor market situation faced by civil engineering contractors in the current economic climate. “Although the situation is showing a less steep decline than in the previous survey, the overall picture reinforces the view already held in the industry that there are difficult times ahead. “The sharp decline in house building has had a heavy impact, primarily on smaller contractors, but now with only harbours and rail actually reporting a positive trend in workload, the impact is being felt across the sector. “It is essential that the major projects currently proposed are delivered and that a robust programme of investment in infrastructure is maintained. A further steep decline in workload resulting in redundancies will mean a loss of vital skills. Cut back now and construction will cost more as those skills have to be replaced when the market recovers.”
Contractor Rok has been awarded a £130 million improvements contract from airport owner BAA, it has been reported.
The new Commodity Build Framework will cover alterations, refurbishments and building work in service and public areas at the airports and is in addition to the long term framework agreement Rok already has with BAA for smaller improvement works.
The company is already part of a BAA framework for smaller refurbishment projects, but this new deal will see Rok work on a number of building improvement projects valued between £2mill and £20mill at airports across the UK including Gatwick, Heathrow, Stansted, Southampton, Aberdeen, Glasgow and Edinburgh.
Rok chief executive Garvis Snook said: “BAA quite rightly sets extremely high standards for its suppliers and we are pleased that we are able to meet and often exceed these. It is great news for all of us that our work has been extended by this new framework.”
White Young Green, the International Construction and Engineering consultancy has seen its pre-tax profit rise by 31% , to £21million in the year ending 30 June 2008, up from £16million last year. Turnover rose to £282.1million, a 28% increase on last year's figure of £220.6million.
The company said its work in the international and public sectors helped it to achieve a 14% level of organic growth. Peter Wood, chairman of White Young Green, said: “It gives me great pleasure to report another excellent year for White Young Green marked by strong double-digit organic growth across primary skill groups and geographies.”
The company made three acquisitions during the year: transport consultant Savell Bird & Axon, financial consultant Management Consultants Group, and Irish infrastructure consultant PH McCarthy, for an aggregate of 34.4million.The order book stands at a record 400 million pounds, while around 66 percent of the net revenue target for 2009 has been secured together with 36 percent for 2010.
A 12 mile bridge linking Germany to Denmark has finally got the go-ahead after 15 years of arguing over costs. The link, which will cost an estimated £4bn, will link the German island of Fehmarn with the Danish island of Lolland. It is expected to take 10 years to complete. The project aims to boost trade between Scandinavia and the rest of Europe and cut journey times.The Danes, who are expected to get most benefit from the scheme, are putting up the lion's share of the cash.Some locals have raised concerns about the effect of the project on the ferry industry and local ecology.
Costain, the engineering and construction group today announced a strong interim performance, with first-half profit up by 26%. The group made a pre-tax profit of £10.1m in the six months ending 30 June 2008, compared with £8.0m profit in the first half of 2007.Turnover rose to £467.5m, up from £430.0m during the same period a year earlier.
The group's order book increased by 25% to a record £2.0bn, with around £900m of new work secured in the first half of 2008. New UK infrastructure projects included Farringdon station as part of the Thameslink project, and the A14 highway development in Cambridgeshire. David Allvey, chairman of the group, said that despite the economic environment he was confident the company's “targeted blue-chip customers” would continue with their investment programmes.Costain is in a good position to continue to deliver growth in line with our expectations,” he added.
Amidst a plethora of profits warnings its good to hear that WSP, the global design,engineering and management consultancy group, has reported a 43% profit rise and a record order book in its half-year results.The company posted pre-tax profit of £23million for the six months to 30 June. Turnover was £363.5million, up 40% on last year. The group who emplo around 9,500 staff worldwide, said its June order book stood at £1.2billion, up from £900million in December, and had been boosted by public-sector transport contracts and international project awards, particularly in the Middle East.
The board said it was confident that key transport and infrastructure markets would remain “largely unaffected” by the financial turmoil and that the company would continue to perform in line with expectations. “Notwithstanding the wider economic uncertainties, the group is in a strong position, with good momentum in its many varied markets, which we believe will present us with excellent opportunities in the future,” said the group.
Plans for a mainline railway station linking Heathrow airport to the rest of the national rail network, including a high-speed rail link to the Channel tunnel line, are to be outlined to Ruth Kelly, transport secretary, today. The scheme is being promoted by Arup, the civil engineering consultant, which estimates the project would cost £4.5bn and could be completed by 2019. The new Heathrow Hub station, which would make Heathrow the first stop on an extended high-speed rail network, would be built to the north of the airport. Mark Bostock, a director of Arup, said: “Extending high-speed rail in Britain is an inevitability - a matter of when, not if. The rising cost of flying, and growing awareness of its environmental impact, has seen a surge in demand for our existing high-speed rail services, and this trend is set to continue. The finance model we are outlining today would offer business the early opportunity to invest in a growth market.”
The Association for Consultancy and Engineering has called on the government to scrap tuition fees for engineering courses in a bid to stave off a skills crisis in the sector.
Talking on their website, Nelson Ogunshakin, ACE chief executive said: “The industry is working to close the gap in the salaries between engineering and other comparable professions to make engineering careers more attractive. Until this is achieved we need, as a country, to incentivise engineering as a career. Waiving tuition fees for engineering courses will increase the demand for those courses and ultimately increase the number of professional engineers the nation so badly needs,”
He added that“Multiple precedents for this change already exist,A similar system has already been implemented in the United States, and the UK government have for some time been offering this incentive for those completing teacher training. This issue has also been raised recently in parliament during the current Universities and Skills Committee hearings on engineering skills - a positive sign that the change is coming closer.”
“We are entering a critical period for our education system; maybe our last chance to get these policies right before highly-skilled jobs start to disappear overseas. This is a radical but proportionate proposal and I urge all engineering organisations and government to work to make this proposal a reality,” Ogunshakin concluded.
London's transport bosses are expected to take over the Tube maintenance work of in-administration company Metronet "within weeks", it has been announced.Metronet, responsible for maintaining two thirds of the Underground, went into administration in July last year. It has been announced that London Mayor Ken Livingstone has approved schemes that will transfer Metronet's business to Transport for London (TfL). London Underground managing director Tim O'Toole said: "We have now begun the final process of removing Metronet from Administration, which is a major achievement and extremely good news for London's Tube passengers. We anticipate that the Metronet business will transfer to Transport for London during the next few weeks.
"Following Administration, we will seek to put in place a stable, economic and efficient structure that is better able to deliver Transport for London's investment priorities leading to increased capacity on the Tube in future, along with station security and communications improvements. The transfer to TfL control will enable us to further restructure and properly plan for the future."
The two Metronet Rail companies - BCV and SSL- entered PPP Administration on 18 July 2007. London Underground is working with the Administrators, Ernst & Young, to ensure all necessary maintenance and renewal works continue.
Metronet Rail BCV is responsible for the maintenance and renewal of the Bakerloo, Central, Victoria and Waterloo & City lines while Metronet Rail SSL is responsible for the maintenance and renewal of the sub-surface lines: the Circle, District, Hammersmith & City and Metropolitan.
Findings of the first ever nationwide report into public attitudes and perceptions towards engineers and engineering have revealed that 2 in 3 young people know very little about engineering and almost 3 in 4 don't understand what engineers actually do. This could have serious implications if it affects their future career choice as the UK's output of engineers is already stagnating. The report published by the Royal Academy of Engineering and the Engineering Technology Board showed that typically it is seen as a male orientated profession related to construction and manual professions. Seven out of 10 respondents said that the many types of engineering made it difficult for the ‘average’ person to understand. Engineering was seen as hard to define and vague and many put the confusion down to the misuse of the term engineering to describe other trades such as technicians or to describe repair work. Misconceptions and misunderstanding of engineers and engineering are arguably the key fundamental cause of difficulties in recruiting young people to train, study for and develop their careers in the engineering field," John Morton, the ETB's Chief Executive, said.
Up to 70% of the signs on rural roads are unnecessary and could be removed, according to the Campaign to Protect Rural England (CPRE).The CPRE wants the Government to issue guidance on how to fix signs and design roads to prevent overuse of signage to enhance the appearance the landscape.
At an Institute for Highway Incorporated Engineers conference in Loughborough today, CPRE planning campaigner Paul Miner will also urge highway authorities to carry out "clutter audits'' of secondary A, B and lesser roads. An audit of the A32 in rural Hampshire found 70% of the signs could be removed, according to the CPRE. Mr Miner said: "The Government wants local authorities to be 'place shapers. The best place everyone can start is by looking at the appearance of our roads. Most of our rural roads are a mess of unnecessary and standardised signage that looks bland and encourages irresponsible motoring. By getting rid of this clutter, local councils, highway engineers and communities can make our countryside a safer and more attractive place to be.'' Sheila Rainger, Head of Campaigns at the RAC Foundation, said:
‘Road signs are designed to warn, instruct and advise, but if overused they simply confuse. Highways Authorities have the best of intentions, hoping that additional signs will enhance road safety, but a surfeit of signs can lead to disaster. Their physical presence on the roadside threatens bikers and cyclists, while the mental load required to process excess information compromises drivers’ concentration. Over 150 local authorities in Germany have purged their verges of excess signs and we urge UK councils to follow suit.’
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