Ebola outbreak tips Dawnus into £9m loss

Dawnus Group ran up a £9m loss last year after the private civil engineering and mining company was hit by the devastating impact across its African operations of the Ebola outbreak.

Managing director Bob Jones said the problems prompted a major group wide restructuring and the firm was now confident about returning to profitability this year.

Overall group turnover slipped from its 2014 peak of £249m to £190m, as revenue from African operations fell from £102m to just £21m in 2015.

This ended a spectacular growth run that saw the Swansea-based firm established in 2001 expand rapidly with offices in Swansea,  Bangor, Exeter, Birmingham and London.

The main UK construction business Dawnus Construction Holdings remained profitable but saw pre-tax profit fall a third to £4.5m on turnover marginally down at £149m.

For this year and next Dawnus has set its sights on securing larger civil engineering contracts at home and continues to aim to employ its own labour force and plant to maximised quality and delivery.

Jones said: “In challenging market conditions, the board was satisfied with the UK performance, however the overall performance of the group was adversely affected by its operations in Africa.

“In Africa, the group’s activities were impacted by the Ebola outbreak and plummeting iron ore prices.

“This coupled with the collapse of two major customer in Africa, led to the group reporting an overall loss for the year.”

He said: “The collective impact of bad debts across 2014 and 2015 was a charge of £13.5m to the statement of comprehensive income.

“The group enters 2016 with a strong order book and strong balance sheet. The directors believe that the group is well positioned to overcome the challenges of 2015 and take advantage of the opportunities ahead both within the UK and for carefully selected overseas opportunities,” Jones added.

Earlier this year 40 Dawnus International employees were awarded medals by the UK Government for their help in fighting the spread of the Ebola virus in Sierra Leone.

The firm constructed two Ebola Emergency Treatment Centres at Port Loko and Makeni in Sierra Leone, each of which provided over a hundred beds for Ebola patients.

from Construction Enquirer http://www.constructionenquirer.com/2016/10/03/ebola-outbreak-tips-dawnus-into-9m-loss/

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Wates launches housing development arm

Wates Group has become the latest contractor to join the charge back into private housing development in the face of growing opportunities for creative mixed housing-led development schemes.

The newly launched business, Wates Residential, will look for housing investment and sales-led development across the UK.

Wates said it aims to build upon its contractor relationships with social landlords, while also expanding its investment portfolio and increasing sales activity in the private housing market through the Wates Residential brand.

Set against a backdrop of evolving markets, the latest announcement follows the separation of the group’s new-build housing division and its social housing maintenance business, which will retain the Wates Living Space brand.

Jo Jamieson, managing director of Wates Residential, said: “Our new business strategy will enable us to build our relationship with our core social landlord client base, while also unlocking new and innovative development opportunities, to which we will bring our extensive place-making expertise.

Earlier this year Willmott Dixon broke with its tradition for sticking with public housing to launch Willmott Residential to spearhead a move into private housing development for the first time, while Kier restructured its housing contracting, partnership and private housing activities under a single residential brand to pave the way for joint venture development projects with housing associations and investors.

Wates Residential’s current partnership housing pipeline includes City of Cardiff Council’s flagship Housing Partnership Programme, under which 1,500 new homes will be developed over ten years.

Existing sales-led developments include Erith Park in Kent and Butler’s Crescent in Dudley, which is being delivered in partnership with Dudley Council and the Homes and Communities Agency.

The strategic shift comes as the family-owned Wates Group approaches it 120th year in the housing sector. The restructure will see Wates Residential form part of Wates Residential Developments Group alongside the business’ land investment and planning arm, Wates Developments.

David Brocklebank, group managing director, Residential Developments Group, said:  “Bringing Wates Residential together with Wates Developments allows us to combine our strong capabilities across the growing residential sector.

“Notably we can offer land investment and scheme promotion, specialist planning delivery and residential land sales, plus our developments to include joint venture partnerships in both private and public sectors.

He added: “We are also operating across the UK now, with a great variety of clients and partners, and I am very much looking forward to how we can continue to grow and build on our solid performance and reputable name.”

from Construction Enquirer http://www.constructionenquirer.com/2016/10/02/__trashed-10/

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Government unveils £5bn boost to speed up house building

The Government is pledging £5bn of public money to accelerate building of tens of thousands of home.

Under the latest plan to galvanise the house building industry, ministers will set aside £2bn of new public borrowing to fund an Accelerated Construction Scheme to make public land with planning permission available to builders.

A further £3bn home building fund using previously-announced cash will provide loans to stimulate new building projects where finances are tight.

Builders will be encouraged through these funding pots to use more modern building techniques in the hope of delivering homes twice as quickly.

Also new rules will be introduced to make it easier for developers to demolish offices and replace them with residential housing on a like-for-like basis.

Local planning authorities will be able to grant permission in principle on sites identified in new brownfield registers, to take the risk out of developing a potential 140,000 homes a year.

Chancellor Philip Hammond and Communities Secretary Sajid Javid will set out details of the funds at the Conservative party conference in Birmingham today.

“We’ll use all the tools at our disposal to accelerate housebuilding and ensure that over time, housing becomes more affordable,” finance minister Philip Hammond said in a statement before his speech to the conference.

The home building fund will release £1bn of short-term loans for small builders, custom builders and innovative developers to deliver 25,500 homes by 2020, while a further £2bn of long-term funding for infrastructure will unlock up to 200,000 homes over the longer term, they said.

from Construction Enquirer http://www.constructionenquirer.com/2016/10/03/government-unveils-5bn-boost-to-speed-up-house-building/

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Building firms revealed for £430m London Tube upgrade

Transport for London has named the new line-up of subcontractors it will use to deliver building work during the London Underground station modernisation programme.

Tube bosses decided to cut-out main contractors altogether to work directly with specialist subcontractors on the £430m stations upgrade last year.

London Underground’s in-house Station Works and Improvement Programme team now acts as an internal principal contractor in the hope that working directly with the trade contractors using three consultants to oversee work on the 70-station improvement programme will cut costs by 25%.

Large building project work worth over £2m will be subcontracted out to just seven firms, with 46 other tier 2 and tier 3 contractors prequalified for smaller packages on the SWIP building framework.

London Underground SWIP building framework
Over £2m:	£300,000 – £2m	Up to £300,000
DMC Contracts	A J Wells and Sons	Barcol
Giffen Group	Avondale Construction	Community Clean
KN Network Services	BCM Construction	Derlin Construction
Margal Major Projects	Blara Safety UK	Design Rationale
MPB Structures	Braybrook	George Jones
Panache Fire Services	CPS Rail	IPS Communications
Speedy Asset Services	CRL Contracts	Loftus Construction Solutions
	Cuttle Construction	McGinley Support Services
	D and D Rail	McNealy Brown
	Delatim	OCL Rail
	DPM Interiors	Pod-Trak
	Ductclean (UK )	Power + Line
	Elm Site Services	SMB Electrical Contractors
	Gee Construction Co
	Global Rail Construction
	HA Marks
	Hilton Abbey
	Hillmoore Fire Protection
	Jack Tighe
	JNG Construction and Engineering
	KM McLoughlin Decorating
	Livis Links Signs
	OnSite Central
	POS Rail Services
	Pyramid Builders
	RJC UK
	Silenzio Panels
	Spoor-Tech
	Szerelmey
	TeamForce Labour
	Trad Scaffolding Company
	TRI Contracting Services
	VolkerLaser

The framework agreement is for an initial five years, which could be extended by three more years.

Earlier this year London Underground named its SWIP partners for its preferred civil engineering trade contractors.

Large civil engineering project work worth over £2m will be subcontracted out to just seven firms, with 30 other tier 2 and tier 3 contractors prequalified for smaller packages on the SWIP framework.

London Underground SWIP civils framework
Civils jobs over £2m	Jobs £300k – £2m	Jobs up to £300K
MPB Structures	Ductclean (UK )	T Loughman and Co
KN Network Services	V G Clements Contractors	Robert Stevens and Sons
Graham Construction	TeamForce Labour	Power + Line
Giffen Group	Taziker Industrial	Pod-Trak
Galldris Construction	Spoor-Tech	Platelayers
Barhale Construction	RJC UK	OCL RAIL
BCM Construction	Pyramid Builders	McNealy Brown
	POS Rail Services	McGinley Support Services (Infrastructure)
	OnSite Central	Loftus Construction Solutions
	Livis	JNG Construction
	Kilnbridge Construction Services	Irvine Grenson
	Global Rail Construction	HA Marks
	Elm Site Services	Barcol
	D and D Rail
	Braybrook
	Blara Safety UK
	BPH Rail and Civil Engineering

from Construction Enquirer http://www.constructionenquirer.com/2016/10/03/building-firms-revealed-for-430m-london-tube-upgrade/

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Use of 'large open-ended pipe piles' could lead to lower-cost bridge construction

A new project has been launched to learn how to use a type of bridge pile often seen in offshore applications. The research could help reduce the cost of bridge building or replacement of aging spans.

from Engineering and Construction News – ScienceDaily https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2016/09/160929143902.htm

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New colors, a new world of pigments continue to evolve from accidental blue discovery

A bright blue compound that was first discovered by accident seven years ago has now led to the more rational and methodical development of other colors that may ultimately change the world of pigments, say researchers.

from Engineering and Construction News – ScienceDaily https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2016/09/160928220850.htm

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Civil engineering society issues first-ever tsunami-safe building standards

When the next huge tsunami strikes the western United States, people in and around some newly built coastal structures will be more safe thanks to new national construction standards – the first ever in the U.S.

from Engineering and Construction News – ScienceDaily https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2016/09/160928220709.htm

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