Edgelaw project Manager Jim Martin, from Miller Homes’ Edinburgh development is elated to win the Excellence in On-site Management Quality Award in this year’s NHBC Pride in the Job Awards which were announced last week (17 June).
The annual awards recognise the commitment and dedication of development site managers in attaining consistently high standards in the building of new homes. They are among the most prestigious awards for site managers in the housebuilding industry, where more than 11,000 candidates from across the UK are assessed across six key areas for several months against the NHBC’s stringent standards.
The team at Miller Homes’ Edgelaw development in Edinburgh demonstrated the best practice in the field, and Site Manager Jim was delighted to be recognised for the Pride in the Job Award among the other talented winners from across the country.
Jim (61), has more than 40 years’ experience in the construction industry and has worked for Miller Homes for 16 years. This is his 13th Pride in the Job award showing his on-going dedication to the job.
Jim Martin, Site Manager at Miller Homes’ Edgelaw development, said: “I am honoured, once again, to have been selected for the Quality Award at this year’s NHBC Pride in the Job Awards. I’ve been building homes for more than four decades and it’s so rewarding to know that we are helping build a future for many families. I’ve got a wonderful team at Edgelaw who all work extremely hard to deliver the highest quality of product and service for our buyers. I’d like to say a special thanks to my colleagues on site and the wider Miller Homes team, our excellent suppliers and of course the lovely residents at Edgelaw.”
Neil Gaffney, Regional Operations Director for Miller Homes Scotland East commented: “It is an incredible achievement for Jim to have now won a Quality Award 13 times. Jim is a talented project Manager, who is dedicated to his role and is extremely deserving of this award. We would like to extend our warmest congratulations to Jim from everyone at Miller Homes. Well done!”
Following on from the Quality Awards are the NHBC’s Seal of Excellence and Regional Awards, which will be announced later in the year.
For buyers interested in the Edgelaw development, there are a selection of three, four and five-bedroom homes available. Interested buyers can find out more by visiting www.millerhomes.co.uk.
As part of the world’s leading testing, inspection and certification company, the SGS Academy has trained thousands of people over the last three decades, enhancing people and businesses improving personal competence and skills.
Maintaining the same level of learning across your organisation can be complex, especially when dealing with numerous training providers. Businesses need to ensure that all personnel receive consistent, effective, high-quality training with as little bureaucracy as possible.
Additionally, the recent pandemic highlighted the importance of providing digitised training to support remote working, however there are other reasons training is important:
• The need for knowledgeable leaders to continue to drive change and continuously improve acquiring new skills to manage the “new business as usual”
• The need for motivated and engaged staff to ensure retention by providing them with relevant training for their role as well as supporting their career development
SGS has developed a white paper which considered the impact the pandemic had on business strategies and looks at how digitalized courses represent a safe and effective method for delivering organizations’ and progressing learning and development goals.
Download the white paper for free.
SGS offers training in a range of areas including Quality, Sustainability, Health and Safety, Medical, Food, IT Security, Business Continuity and Management.
To celebrate our anniversary, we-re offering Chambers members a 20% discount on courses. Visit www.sgs.co.uk/trainingcatalogue and enter CHAMBER20 to enjoy this exclusive member offer.
If you have any further enquiries for SGS please contact Yemisi Olutogun on +44 (0) 1276 697 715 or uk.nowisthetime@sgs.com
Tickets to the 2023 Royal Highland Show go on sale at 5pm today as the gates close on this year’s barnstorming event, which welcomed 194,000 people over the four days (23-26 June).
And with over 200,000 viewers of live online content on RHS TV, the reach of the Royal Highland Show has never been greater.
Celebrating 200 years of showcasing the best of the country’s food, farming and rural life, high-profile figures attending included First Minister Nicola Sturgeon, Secretary of State for Scotland Alister Jack, and Minister for Environment and Land Reform Màiri McAllan.
40,000 children attended for free in line with the Royal Highland and Agricultural Society of Scotland (RHASS) charitable remit.
A limited number of Super Early Bird tickets for the 2023 Royal Highland Show (22nd – 25th June) will be released today via the Show’s website (royalhighlandshow.org) priced at £27.50 (plus booking fee) with children 15 and under going FREE.
Commenting on the success of the 2022 Royal Highland Show, Bill Gray, RHASS Chairman, said:
“It has been phenomenal to finally celebrate the return of the Royal Highland Show, and the attendance figures this year prove that the public felt the same way. What we offer is a totally unique day out, which everyone, no matter their walk of life, can enjoy to the fullest.
“The success of this very special bicentenary Highland Show is a testament to the hard work of the hundreds of staff and RHASS Directors who work tirelessly to put on this incredible event – one that’s loved equally by the farming community and urban audiences.”
Environment Minister Mairi McAllan said: “The Royal Highland Show is the flagship event in the rural calendar and I was delighted to see so many people enjoy the packed programme of events and displays.
“The event continues to be a major success, showcasing not just the amazing food and drink that Scotland offers, but how it is produced in an increasingly sustainable way.
“I would like to congratulate everyone involved and look forward to seeing plans develop for next years’ show.”
Highlights for this year’s show included 305 trophies, collectively valued at over £4 million, awarded to the 919 cattle, 1913 sheep, 1911 horses and 123 goats competing.
Furthermore, respected industry accolades were awarded to agri-tech pioneers in the RHASS Technical Innovation Awards. Pollock Farm Equipment and Penderfeed Livestock Equipment won Gold awards this year.
The Scottish Championships saw food and drink producers recognised for outstanding produce across competitions in Dairy, Honey, and Bread categories – Fochabers Ice Cream Parlour and Strathearn Cheese Co were amongst the winners.
Plans were also unveiled to name an equestrian ring in honour of Her Majesty the Queen’s Jubilee year. The ‘Jubilee Ring’ is home to equestrian events in the showground, including show jumping. The ring will be formally unveiled at the 2023 Royal Highland Show. As part of the Queen’s Green Canopy Initiative and in partnership with Scottish Woodlands, native and ornamental trees will be planted around the Jubilee Ring.
The show also demonstrated innovation with the launch of the RHS App, all the action being livestreamed through the Show’s online channel, RHS TV, and live and on-demand broadcasts through Facebook – the live/on-demand content has been viewed over 200,000 times in total from 82 countries. The content is available to view on demand via the RHS website.
Every year at the Show, one of the eight member regions of RHASS is showcased – this year it was the turn of the Highlands Presidential Team to celebrate their area. With the theme ‘Scotland’s Natural Capital – Highlands and Islands’, a specially created exhibition focused on tourism, culture, food & drink, renewable energy and tackling climate change in the region. A large section of the Scotland’s Larder food hall was also dedicated to producers from the Highlands and Islands.
The Royal Highland Show, supported by the Royal Bank of Scotland, took place 23-26th June 2022. For further information and to watch the action back via RHS TV please visit www.royalhighlandshow.org.
The firm held an event in its Bristol headquarters, celebrating the charities that have been supported in its fundraising endeavours
Burges Salmon has hosted an event celebrating the charities that the firm has supported in its fundraising activities on the theme of ‘No Child Goes Hungry’.
On Tuesday 21 June, members of Burges Salmon hosted an event giving individuals the opportunity to meet and engage with representatives
from Fareshare South West, Square Food Foundation, St Werburghs Community Centre, Borderlands, Young Bristol and Baggator Nexus to celebrate the successes and positive impact the donations from the firm have made.
The firm’s Charity Committee hosted a stall to encourage feedback on recent events, promote upcoming events and volunteering opportunities to get involved with.
Other charities that the firm has supported on this theme to date, include Edinburgh Food Project, Hopscotch, Bristol Local Food Fund, and 91 Ways, to name but a few.
Burges Salmon partner Sian Edmunds, who heads the firm’s Charity Committee, says: “It is of the utmost importance to Burges Salmon that we give back to the community, and one of the ways we do this is by supporting charities that are helping to enable access to good-quality, safe and nutritious food for all. We’re pleased to be donating our fundraising to such an important theme and we hope we can continue to make a difference to the incredible work these charities do going forward.”
Giving back to the community is integral to Burges Salmon’s firm-wide strategy; it is a crucial part of the firm’s culture and its people are encouraged to contribute through volunteering, charitable fundraising, offering pro bono legal advice, as well as taking up board-level trustee and school governor opportunities.
You can find out more in Burges Salmon’s latest Responsible Business Report here.
Commercial property consultant Ryden has announced the promotion of Lorna Greig to Partner. Lorna has been part of the firm’s Rating, Valuation and Lease Advisory team for over 20 years and is one of Scotland’s leading experts in non-domestic rating matters.
With 30 years’ experience in lodging and negotiating rating appeals, rates management and mitigation, Lorna provides advice regarding all types of commercial properties. She has an impressive list of retained clients from multiple industries and public sector organisations.
Ryden’s Rating service represents businesses in ensuring all Rateable Values are fair and reasonable. We liaise with Assessors Departments, answering any business rates queries and minimising outgoings.
Brian Allen, Head of Ryden’s Rating, Valuation and Lease Advisory team, commented on this promotion:
“We’re incredibly delighted to announce this well deserved promotion of our colleague Lorna. She is a key member of our team, always ensuring we establish strong relationships with our clients across all sectors.
“This appointment once again demonstrates our commitment to developing our staff as part of Ryden’s ongoing growth plans.”
Lorna Greig, Rating Partner at Ryden, added:
“I am looking forward to continuing to strengthen Ryden’s rating consultancy service and to keep providing the best advice to our clients.
“With the next non-domestic rates revaluation in Scotland taking effect in 2023, there will be significant opportunities to support businesses and organisations by minimising their rating costs in an inflationary environment which will place additional pressure upon many of them.
“The rating regime is changing fast and the system and process will look very different in this new revaluation. We are here to help you and we are ready to establish how best to protect our clients’ positions now.”
For further information on Ryden’s Rating consultancy service, please visit https://www.ryden.co.uk/services/business-rates
The Blackadders’ Employment Law team are delighted to once again be shortlisted at this year’s Scottish Legal Awards. The Scottish Legal Awards is a major event in the legal calendar. It is independently judged by a panel of experts with market knowledge and experience and is therefore recognised by the legal profession across Scotland.
Simon Allison, Head of Employment Law and winner of the 2018 Lawyer of the Year Award, commented. “It is amazing for the team to be listed as a finalist in the Employment Team of the Year Award. Any recognition for hard work is a massive boost for staff morale and motivation. We are so proud to once again be shortlisted following previous wins in 2016 and 2019 – to win again would be fantastic”.
Just last month Cruden Homes was amongst the winners at the annual Homes for Scotland Awards. Awards are always welcome, but they mean even more during times of upheaval and uncertainty, so to receive the top accolade of ‘Home Builder of the Year – Large’ along with ‘Development of the Year – Small’ was an aptly timed honour.
The past year or so has been testing for the housing sector. Difficulties arising from unprecedented global events have included site shutdowns, staff shortages, high material costs and ongoing supply chain issues, yet completions have continued despite these challenges. And while apartments in urban areas have been slower to sell, the industry currently cannot build fast enough to keep pace with demand for homes in suburban and edge-of-town locations.
With stock levels currently very low as developments continue to sell out, it is hard to accurately predict what lies ahead for the housing market, but rising fuel and food prices and steadily increasing mortgage rates will undoubtedly impact sales during the second half of this year as the cost of living truly begins to bite. For first time buyers, for whom little help is now available, it is going to become very difficult to get a foot onto the bottom rung of the property ladder and sales further up the ladder could be set to slow too as a result.
Yet even when taking the most realistic view of the situation, the industry is optimistic. Demand remains favourable, forward order books are strong and thanks to the lessons learnt during Covid, we know that build programmes, customer service and marketing can all flex very quickly to take account of change.
It was our ongoing drive to meet the needs of customers that led us to develop the award-winning Muirwood Gardens in Kinross, a new type of community for over-55s from our ‘Juniper’ brand, where high quality homes are ‘future-proofed’ using clever design and subtle technology. And it is also why we are now creating a portfolio of standard house types, designed to complement our ongoing bespoke and niche developments. Doing this will allow us to compete in a highly competitive and volume driven marketplace and give more buyers access to the high standards of build and finish that we strive to deliver.
We will also continue to emphasise the importance of community, whether that’s through a Club House for residents at Muirwood Gardens, or by rolling up our sleeves and helping to spruce up playgrounds and Scouts huts as we have done at Longniddry Village and at Meadowside in Aberlady. And our ‘fabric first’ approach will continue to see us exceed building standards for green energy and efficiency, helping to make our homes both comfortable and economical to run.
We’re currently involved in some of Edinburgh’s highest profile, net zero carbon developments, including Fountainbridge, where we are carrying out a landmark regeneration of the historic brewery site. But while some national infrastructure improvements are still needed in order to make a switch to green energy seamless, the sorts of measures that we are already taking, including air and ground source heat pumps, green/blue roof solutions and installation of electric vehicle charging points, are no longer technologies of the future, but are part of a tool kit of products and systems that will make homes more sustainable and minimise fuel bills. We recognise how important this is for our customers, now more than ever.
And doing the right thing, for our customers as well as for the environment, is part of the ethos that we share with the New Homes Quality Board, the recently introduced framework for ensuring a more customer centric experience to the new home purchase process and for overseeing how developers and home buyers can resolve issues.
So, while the economic outlook may be uncertain, our sector continues to positively evolve and we feel strongly that the housebuilding industry in Scotland is well equipped to continue delivering high quality, energy-efficient homes in the months ahead and Cruden, with our 22 consecutive years of profitable trading and a track record of a highly agile business model, is well placed to weather whatever lies ahead.
Turner & Townsend Consulting Limited has secured a position on National Highways’ Operational Technology Commercial Framework following a competitive tendering exercise, working in collaboration with our key subcontractor Accenture (UK) Limited.
Through the framework we will have the opportunity to provide National Highways with consultancy support for its operational technology services and programmes – including the successful delivery of roadside systems such as vehicle detection, digital enforcement cameras, CCTV, emergency telephones and variable message signs.
These essential services allow the reliable, safe and resilient operation of the strategic road network.
The framework will help enable National Highways’ digital roads strategy as it oversees a transformation of the network that will support smart assets, connected and electric vehicles and deliver greater environmental sustainability.
The appointment brings together our digital, programme and operational expertise. Working in collaboration with Accenture we will have the opportunity to provide innovative operational technology advisory and delivery programme expertise through the framework. The appointment is for a two-year term, with extension options of up to twenty-four months in total.
Nathan Marsh, Chief Digital Officer for UK Infrastructure and Defence, said: “Operational technology is a vital part of keeping the UK’s extensive road network running smoothly and safely, our team has significant highways experience to deliver on this.
“We look forward to working in collaboration with Accenture on the opportunity to ensure the network remains well-maintained and resilient, providing a fast and reliable way for all our road users to efficiently get to their destinations.
Supporting National Highways to form and deliver a programme to upgrade the technology assisting our road network is also a prime opportunity to improve the social and environmental impact of our highways.
“Whether implementing noise mitigation solutions, ensuring work is undertaken with biodiversity in mind, or helping to reduce road accidents and carbon emissions through speed management across the network.”
Soaring inflation in the UK construction sector exacerbated by the conflict in Ukraine means that businesses should focus on securing a resilient supply chain and getting the basics right to guard against further shocks.
Our latest UK market intelligence report shows significant upward revisions to its quarterly forecasts – particularly the inflationary predictions for 2022. This is driven by rapidly rising energy costs as the impact of the war in Ukraine resonates through global supply chains.
Our central forecasts for tender price rises in 2022 now sit at 8.5 percent for real estate and 6 percent for infrastructure, much higher than that of the Winter 2021/22 predictions of 4.5 and 4 percent for the same period.
The Ukraine conflict has had a significant near-term impact on inflation, but these exceptional conditions come on top of layers of issues including pandemic and Brexit disruption.
Despite relatively little direct reliance on oil and gas imports from Russia, the nature of the global market means that elevated energy prices are at the heart of the latest spike, with monthly indices for crude oil, diesel and premium unleaded increasing by 99.4, 33.8 and 30 percent month on year in March alone.
This has impacted logistics costs as well as materials with energy-intensive manufacture processes such as brick, cement and steel. Our analysis points to a sustained impact from these multiple factors through 2022 but indicates a settling of conditions thereafter, with long-term tender price forecasts for 2025 at 4 percent for real estate and 5 percent for infrastructure.
The new report argues that businesses must keep cool heads in the face of these pressures, calling for pragmatic, flexible procurement and greater collaboration with the supply chain. It underscores the importance of getting the basics right – with clear planning that factors in time for early engagement with suppliers, better understanding and apportioning risk and maximising value over hitting target costs.
The report also warns that the major risk to the industry as a whole is that inflation distracts from the vital work being done by businesses to achieve and target wider goals such as net zero, driving productivity gains or embedding social value into their operations.
If tender prices continue to rise rapidly, the report warns that there could come a tipping point at which early-stage projects are put on ice and clients postpone their capital investment decisions in larger numbers than they are presently doing.
Pointing to how the industry has navigated the disruption of the past few years, the report makes the case for immediate cost pressures to be considered as part of a programmatic approach to capital investment that targets these systemic challenges.
Martin Sudweeks, UK managing director of cost management, said: “Now is the time for calm, clear and programmatic thinking – focusing on setting up projects for success with full recognition of challenging cost pressures and a plan to manage them that starts with getting the basics right.
Contract scrutiny needs to be front and centre. Businesses must avoid panicked procurement in the hope of locking-in pricing, instead taking time to eliminate ambiguity that can be a bigger risk than inflation itself.
“This is about picking the best team and ensuring you have capable and resilient contracting partners. Clients should map out the supply chain and identify weak links, then work to eliminate risk and where necessary share the burden of disruption. Those that successfully diversify their supply chains and build strong relationships with trusted suppliers will maximise resilience and benefit most long-term.”
We have narrowed our gender pay gap for the fifth year running, as revealed in our gender pay report for 2021/22, launched today.
The report shows a 1.9 percent decrease in our mean gender pay gap over the last year, and a 6.2 percent decrease in our mean bonus gap.
The statutory report, for UK organisations with a headcount of 250 or more people, looks at the difference between the average earnings of men and women across a workforce. It is not the same as equal pay, which is a legal requirement and means paying men and women performing identical work the same amount.
We continue to improve the gender balance of our business through proactive, targeted initiatives, particularly around how we attract and retain female talent. These initiatives include:
◾making the wording of our job advertisements more inclusive
◾relaunching our career returners programme to recognise and embrace the skills and experiences of those who have taken time away from work
◾selecting diverse interview panels – recognising that first impressions count, and reflecting the diversity of the candidate pool we wish to attract
◾developing female sponsorship routes throughout the business so that senior roles are open and accessible.
Our objective is to create an environment where everyone can succeed and as part of this we are continuing to promote flexible and hybrid working practices.
Later this year we will publish our first full inclusion report, our Commitment to Inclusion – which will include data on multiple strands of diversity in our organisation, along with more detail on how we will drive greater levels of inclusion through our initiatives.
Patricia Moore, UK Managing Director, said: “We are building significant momentum on our commitment to reducing the gender pay gap in our organisation, which is key to ensuring we have the range of talent to deliver the programmes of the future that will solve society’s big challenges.
The hard work has really only just begun though, and as an organisation in a male-dominated industry, it is important we take a leadership role in changing the face of the workforce.
“Not only is it the right thing to do, as construction continues to experience a skills crisis, it is a prerequisite for transforming performance on the UK’s projects and programmes that are critical to addressing regional inequalities and achieving our net-zero targets.
“That is why we are going further to prioritise inclusion in all its forms, and holding ourselves to account through a culture of transparency. We look forward to sharing more on this in our inaugural Commitment to Inclusion later this year.”
