As the week draws to a close, CM rounds up the construction stories you may have missed over the past seven days:
A 32-year-old man killed, reportedly after being hit by a falling object on a London construction site last month, has been named. MyLondon reported that an inquest into the death of Gurwinder Singh, who lived in Southall, Ealing, as opened at Poplar Coroners’ Court. Singh was working on a site in East Road in Hoxton on 21 December when the accident happened.
Engineer Max Fordham, who founded his eponymous engineering firm, has died at the age of 88. Fordham started Max Fordham & Partners in 1996 with his late wife Thalia Fordham, before it became Max Fordham LLP in 2001. The firm hailed him as a “pioneer of sustainable building design”, according to Dezeen. “He desisted pigeonholing into the conventional boxes of mechanical or electrical engineering, and was always interested in the whole building,” the firm said in a statement.
A carbon-neutral stadium dubbed ‘The Cathedral’ is to be built to replace the Giuseppe Meazza Stadium in Milan, also known as the San Siro. The new home to clubs AC Milan and Inter Milan has been designed by US architect Populous, according to Global Construction Review. It will sit in a new neighbourhood with 111,000 sq m of green areas dedicated to sports and leisure activities.
HS2 construction joint venture partner Balfour Beatty Vinci (BBV) has launched a recruitment drive to find more workers for its projects in 2022 and beyond. The company is looking to take on more recruits at satellite offices across Solihull, Warwickshire and Birmingham, according to Rail Technology Magazine.
BBV is building the West Midlands section of HS2’s Phase One route, running 80km from Long Itchington in Warwickshire to the centre of Birmingham and on to Handacre in Staffordshire. The work involves the construction of 42 viaducts totalling 11km and 66 overbridges, as well as more than 35 cuttings.
Plans to build a spaceport near Glasgow have moved forward as the scheme progressed into the planning application stage of its development. Herald Scotland reported that Glasgow Prestwick Airport, the lead partner in the scheme, aims to apply for planning permission in early 2022, with the spaceport slated to conduct its first rocket launch by the end of 2023.
The proposed scheme will see ‘horizontal’ or ‘air’ launches in which aircraft carry a rocket containing a small satellite to high altitude above the sea before the rocket leaves the aircraft and ignites to fly into orbit.
Gleeds creates ‘emerging talent group’
Consultant Gleeds has created an ‘emerging talent group’ that aims to bring together junior staff members from construction consultancy firms to collaborate, learn and network.
Justin Moore, project director at Gleeds, established the group which is aimed at apprentices, trainees, recent graduates, assistant project managers, quantity surveyors and other people at the early stages of their career. Gleeds already has seven team members from its Cardiff office in the talent group.
