Hillhouse Quarry Group, one of Scotland’s largest privately owned aggregates and asphalt producers, has appointed former NATS chief financial officer Alistair Borthwick as chief executive and promoted long-serving commercial director Mark Munro to managing director. The leadership change follows the planned April retirement of managing director Robert McNaughton, who led the family-run business for 18 years as it expanded from an Ayrshire quarry operator into a national group and entered Scotland’s top 100 private companies. For contractors and materials buyers, the move signals continuity in long-term supply relationships and pricing strategy, with added financial discipline from Borthwick’s infrastructure background.

Sripath has launched ButaPhalt, a new polymer additive for polymer modified bitumen (PMB) blends designed to address long‑standing bonding and durability issues in road surfacings. The formulation is engineered to increase crosslinking connectivity within the binder matrix, improving cohesion between bitumen, polymer and aggregate while also boosting plant production efficiency. For pavement designers and asphalt producers, this signals potential for longer‑life wearing courses, better resistance to rutting and cracking, and fewer processing constraints when specifying high‑performance PMB mixes.

Scottish Water has signed an advance market commitment to procure almost 20,000m³ of low carbon concrete over five years, equivalent to about 30% of its current annual concrete use. The Innovate UK and Carbon Limiting Technologies-led scheme, funded by the Department for Energy Security & Net Zero, aims to aggregate up to 500,000m³ of demand to de-risk commercialisation of novel low carbon mixes. With Scottish Water investing over £1bn a year in infrastructure, the commitment signals material changes to mix design specifications and supply-chain carbon baselines on upcoming projects.