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Constructing Excellence East Midlands Regional Awards
Special invitation to become part of this prestigious regional
event
Being recognised by your peers for excellence in construction
will bring enormous benefits to your organisation. Through raising
your profile you can change your company's image by being known
as the winners of the Constructing Excellence East Midlands Regional
Awards celebrating the best of design, construction and building
services in the region.
There can be no better way to say thank you to your project teams,
entering a project is a fantastic way to give the whole project
team the recognition they deserve. Taking place on Tuesday, 14th
October 2008 at the East Midlands Conference Centre, Nottingham,
the closing date for entries to the 2008 Constructing Excellence
East Midlands Regional Awards is 30th June 2008. Make sure your
team are shown the appreciation they deserve by taking part in
this prestigious occasion.
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Design4life: Energy Training for the Construction Sector
Design4Life is an integrated CPD programme comprising a series
of workshops and briefing events designed to give decision makers
and design-team practitioners access to tailored, flexible awareness
raising and training packages. To date the programme has helped
over 100 design practitioners in the East Midlands develop the
new knowledge and skills needed to improve the quality and energy
performance of their design projects, and ultimately deliver a
more sustainable built environment.
A series of 'bite-size' multimedia recordings and presentation
slides of all three Design4Life themed training workshops, presented
by leading practitioners in their fields: Steve Nicholson (Delta
Energy), Simon Tilley (Hockerton Housing Project) and Paul Rowley
(Centre for Renewable Energy Systems Technology - CREST) will
soon be available, to explore the key aspects of sustainable low
carbon design, including:
- Design basics for low carbon building fabric and services
- Whole life costing approaches
- Renewable energy options
- Legislation and compliance (including Building Regs Part L)
see the Design4Life website at http://www.d4l.org.uk
Funded by the East Midlands Development Agency (emda), Design4Life
is an initiative led by the East Midlands Centre for Constructing
the Built Environment (EMCBE) and Loughborough University.
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Regional Foundation Degree
A regional consortium of colleges, universities and other interested
parties is proposing to develop accessible, skills-based foundation
degrees for the construction industry in the East Midlands. We
want to build the content of the modules based on input from employers,
so that the qualifications fits with the appropriate needs.
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Better Regulation Executive
EMCBE and Constructing Excellence are working the Government
Department (BERR) responsible for improving the performance of
the UK industry. The Department for Business Enterprise and Regulatory
Reform are asking the business world 'what gives it a headache'
and the words 'red tape' and 'regulation' will be high on the
list EMCBE aims to collect a regional response from the Construction
and Built Environment sector and present the response back to
government.
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BRE Gains Accreditation for Microgeneration Certificates
BRE Global as scheme operator, has been awarded accreditation
for the certification of installers, plus heat pumps, solar heating
collectors, micro wind turbines and non-roof integrated photo
voltaic products. Once standards have been completed later this
year, it is expected that this is will be extended to cover roof
integrated solar photo voltaics, inverters, biomass, hydro turbines,
combined heat and power and fuel cell products.
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Olympic Delivery Authority Update
Delivering the London 2012 Olympic and Paralympic Games will
require the procurement of goods, works and services from an enormous
range of firms, the following is a full list of the companies
in the construction services sector that have supplied the Olympic
Delivery Authority,
Name |
Business description |
Location |
Regional Development Authority |
Balfour Beatty Rail Projects Ltd |
Building contractors |
Derby |
EMDA |
Edmund Nuttall Ltd |
Enabling works |
Camberley |
SEEDA |
Interservefm Limited |
Building maintenance services |
Milton Keynes |
EEDA |
J Murphy & Sons Limited |
Enabling works |
London |
LDA |
Morrisons Construction Ltd |
Enabling works |
Hinckley |
EMDA |
Overbury |
Main contractor |
London |
LDA |
Sir Robert McAlpine Ltd |
Building Contractors |
Hemel Hempstead |
EEDA |
London 2012 expects to have around 7,000 direct contracts which,
together with its suppliers, will form supply chains of around
75,000 opportunities. The opportunities will be in sectors ranging
from construction, engineering and manufacturing to creative,
merchandising and retail.
London 2012 will directly buy and manage a comparatively small
number of agreements with tier one suppliers or contractors. Most
of the opportunities for small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs)
are likely to come from further down the supply chains.
CompeteFor is the chosen website of London 2012 for the
publication of Games-related contract opportunities. Once registered
with CompeteFor businesses will automatically receive news of
future tender opportunities from tier two suppliers or below.
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The Housing Forum
The Housing Forum is an independent member organisation of over
115 significant organisationsfrom all sectors of the housing industry,
combining developers, housebuilders, contractors, housing associations,
ALMOs, manufactures, suppliers and specialists together and builds
the cross industry view.
The Housing Forum develops and showcases innovation and business
improvement, engages directly with Government and regulators to
push forward ideas developed by cross industry strategic working
parties.
The Housing Forum provides regular meeting opportunities to improve
knowledge and consolidatebusiness networks and has a range of
"tools for excellence" for members, including KPIs,
DemonstrationProjects and Legacy programmes aimed at improving
skills in the housing sector.
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Innovation Platforms
Governments exist to address the challenges that face society.
They even structure (and constantly restructure) themselves to
address sets of different challenges.All challenges require a
novel approach, but it is often true that the bigger the challenge,
the more innovative the solution has to be.
It should not be any surprise, therefore, that the Technology
Strategy Board, with its focus on innovation, is using the challenges
facing today's society to drive innovative activity in UK businesses.
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Low Impact Buildings
The UK Government has set a number of challenging targets for
improving sustainability; starting with the overarching goal of
a 60% reduction in carbon emissions in the UK by 2050.
The aim is to increase innovation in the buildings industry to
meet this societal challenge.
The Low Impact Buildings Innovation Platform will assist business
to harness the growing market for environmentally sustainable
buildings. This will be done initially for new build housing through
markets affected by the Code for Sustainable Homes, partnering
with the delivery body arising from the Callcutt Review of Housebuilding
Delivery.
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What is Sustainable Construction?
The quality of the built environment is hugely important to the
quality of life within the region, and to the economy of the East
Midlands. The construction and construction products industry
consists of the following:
- Construction contracting
- The mining, quarrying and production of materials and products
- The retail and wholesale of materials and products
- Professional services (e.g. architects, surveyors etc.)
- Plant hire
The following regional industries contribute significantly to
the construction sector:
- Aggregates
- Brick and block manufacturing
- Cement production
- Pre-cast concrete engineering/component industries.
In these areas of activity, construction (contracting) and manufacturing
come together very effectively and, there are many other synergies
- for example Offsite Manufacturing - which are driving the construction
sector to learn as much as possible from the manufacturing sector.
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Chancellor Announces New Business-government Forum on Tax
British businesses and the Government will form a new working
group to look at the long-term challenges facing the UK tax system
and ensure competitiveness remains at the heart of any future
reforms, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, Alistair Darling announced
recently.
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Ian Reeves CBE appointed as Chairman of the Infrastructure Forum
The Infrastructure Forum has announced that Ian Reeves CBE is
to become the new chairman of the organisation and Director of
Constructing Excellence. Andrew McNaughton, the previous chairman,
is stepping down having successfully overseen the Infrastructure
Forum since its launch in November 2006.
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Sustainability ‘Speak’
Construction Waste 'Reprise'
- Construction and demolition waste represents 19 per cent
of all UK waste
(Environment Agency)
- Around 13% of all solid materials delivered to construction
sites goes unused, and up to one third ends up in landfill
(DEFRA).
- 4.5 per cent of a construction company's potential profit
is spent on waste removal
(CIRIA).
- DBERR is looking to minimise waste due to shortage of landfill
capacity, by looking to re-use and re-cycle materials on and
off site.
- BRE's 'The Green Guide to Housing Specification 2007' for
the first-time contains 4 acceptable reclaimed products (floorboards,
bricks, roof slates and clay roof tiles), all of which are rated
A+.
- If the top 2,000 contractors sold on half of their re-usable
waste, it is estimated that the value would be in excess of
£100 million.
(DBERR).
- The true cost of an 8 cubic yard skip of waste, including
skip hire and disposal, labour to fill the skip and cost of
materials put into the skip, is estimated to be £1378,
i.e. £172 per cubic yard.
(WRAP)
- 20 per cent of wastage on site can be either saved and/or
re-used.
(DBERR)
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Creative Energy Homes
In the UK, as part of the Creative Energy Homes Project at Nottingham
University's School of the Built Environment, BASF, helped by
its customers and partners, is building a house to demonstrate
how BASF raw materials can be used to create an energy efficient
and affordable home.
This house, whilst initially experimental, has been designed to
function as a conventional dwelling. The two most significant
aspects of our brief make the house different in appearance from
more conventional housing. Firstly, the house is intended to be
extremely energy efficient and to have as near as possible zero
carbon emissions. Secondly, the house is intended to be extremely
economical and affordable. The key effect of these two important
briefing considerations is that the house has a compact floor
area and relies as much as possible on passive solar design.
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ConstructionSkills Apprenticeships
ConstructionSkills are the largest provider of Construction Apprenticeships
in the Midlands with 26 Operations Staff comprising 23 Apprenticeship
Officers and 3 Assistant Apprenticeship Managers, to contact the
recruitment desk or to find out more information:
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RAPID Derby Club Feedback
Derbyshire County Cricket Ground once again hosted the Derby
Club meeting in April when we were delighted to welcome guest
speakers Bob Betts, Smith of Derby and Malcolm Holden, Six Sigma
Ltd who introduced us to the following:
- The importance of a Business Model for all companies
- De-mystifying Balanced Scorecards, KPIs, Lean, Six Sigma,
ISO, Business Models, etc
- How to assess your own business, determine the 'vital few'
actions to create step-change improvement and convert Mission
& Vision into Reality
- Hands on experience of business assessment
- Sharing knowledge, raising the bar and improving business
performance
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Dragons' Den
Chris Heywood works on the production team for the BBC's award
winning series Dragons' Den which continues to offer entrepreneurs
from across the country the chance to make their business dreams
come true.
He is now working on the new series of Dragons' Den and searching
for business ideas, inventions or products with serious business
potential that are investment ready and looking for funding.
Dragons' Den is a challenging place to pitch but it's also a
genuine business opportunity to secure investment. In the most
recent series, 15 entrepreneurs received offers of investment
in the Den, and plenty more have gone on to find success even
without the backing of the dragons.
Entrepreneurs wanting to apply can do so via email to dragonsden@bbc.co.uk
or by visiting the website www.bbc.co.uk/dragonsden
- details of which appear on both the attached flyer and press
release.
If you have any further questions, please don't hesitate to contact
Chris on chris.heywood@bbc.co.uk
his telephone number is : 0161 2443510
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Small Businesses to get Free Access to Public Sector Contracts
A free trial has begun to provide small and medium sized businesses
with access to thousands of public sector contract opportunities.
From May 1 until July 31, the www.supply2.gov.uk
website will allow new registrants to gain free access to public
sector contracts valued under £100,000 for the UK and Northern
Ireland.
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