Geomechanics.io

Thames Water is tendering a £227m framework for sewer rehabilitation, CCTV surveys and cleaning across its entire region, covering both gravity and rising mains with methods including structural lining, pipe replacement, patch repairs, leak-tight lining, pipe bursting and associated manhole sealing. The scope also includes minor civils, inspection reporting, waste disposal and street works, with some packages requiring work adjacent to railway infrastructure. The framework is split into two lots above and below £3m, with up to six suppliers per lot from April 2027–2030 and potential extension to 2035.

Premier Forest Products is restarting operations at its leased Croespenmaen site in south Wales, converting the former SDL Sawmills facility into a centre of excellence for fencing and landscaping timber with an on-site timber treatment plant. Several former SDL employees will transfer, with long-serving staff Deborah Llewellyn appointed operations manager and Rhys Watkins sales manager to retain local process knowledge and customer links. The site is intended as a key hub in Premier’s UK-wide manufacturing and distribution network, improving national coverage for treated timber products.

Arada has unveiled a £2.5bn plan for the 47‑acre Thameside West site in London’s Royal Docks, targeting at least 5,000 homes with 35% affordable, green space over roughly half the site and a 1km active waterfront. The first phase will deliver 1,500 homes in six buildings plus a major public park, with Arup, Gensler and landscape architect Planit appointed to lead design updates to current building safety and regulatory standards. Arada aims to submit the first-stage planning application this summer, start on site by early 2028, and open a new DLR station with TfL in time for initial occupation.

Balfour Beatty has secured a seven‑year, up to £120m contract from Leeds City Council to maintain and upgrade the 2.5‑mile inner ring road, which carries more than 83,000 vehicles per day and includes over 135 structures such as bridges, tunnels and major retaining walls. Works under the Leeds Contractors Major Works Framework will combine annual planned maintenance with design-and-build strengthening and refurbishment of four bridges and viaducts, three tunnels and one footbridge. Routine maintenance starts immediately, with major structural interventions from 2027 and overall completion targeted for 2032.

Allison Homes has appointed Andrew Sparrow as head of enterprise architecture to align its technology stack with the full housebuilding lifecycle, from land and planning through build, sales and aftercare. With 25 years’ sector experience, including starting as a trainee programmer at David Wilson Homes, Sparrow will focus on integrating systems and data so all departments work from a single information source. The move signals a push to cut IT complexity and cost, reduce operational risk as the business scales, and standardise digital tools across project teams.

Railpen has secured planning consent for 12 Smithfield, a repurposed office scheme delivering 122,000 sq ft of space with floorplates up to 20,000 sq ft across five levels, plus 9,400 sq ft of private terraces, a rooftop garden and 11,400 sq ft of retail, café and amenity space. Designed by Henley Halebrown, the project retains and upgrades the existing structure with a new façade and expanded public realm, targeting BREEAM Outstanding, EPC A, WELL Core Platinum, NABERS UK 5* and net zero carbon in operation. Completion is targeted for Q4 2028, coinciding with the new London Museum opening within the £400m Smithfield regeneration, less than five minutes from Farringdon and the Elizabeth Line.

Evans Randall Investors has secured full planning and related consents for the £200m WilkinsonEyre-designed redevelopment of Thavies Inn House at Holborn Circus, London, clearing the way for demolition contractor Erith and main contractor McLaughlin & Harvey to mobilise on site. The scheme replaces the existing office block with a new Grade A commercial building in a prime City fringe location, signalling imminent demand for complex demolition, deep temporary works and constrained urban logistics.

Red South West, part of Red Group, has secured delivery of the £34m Portwall Place office scheme in Bristol, designed by Buckley Gray Yeoman for BlackRock and LS Estates, signalling a major commercial build in the city’s central business district. The contractor will also construct Buro Happold’s new £8m headquarters at Pinesgate West in Bath, designed by AWW Architects for WPV Developments, consolidating the engineering consultancy’s operations into a purpose-built facility.

Tilbury Douglas has topped out Dorset County Hospital’s £100m New Hospital Programme-funded emergency department and critical care building with installation of a £2m aluminium rooftop helipad by Bayards, the county’s only hospital rooftop landing facility. The prefabricated helideck, imported from the Netherlands, has an area of about 284 sq ft and a load capacity of 8,600kg, enabling direct air ambulance access to the new two-storey clinical block. The scheme expands critical care from 11 to 16 beds, adds paediatric and mental health-specific spaces, and links to the main hospital via a new corridor.

Severn Trent Water is preparing early supply-chain engagement for a new capital delivery framework programme worth up to £25bn over the next 8–15 years across the Midlands. The frameworks will cover long-term water and wastewater infrastructure upgrades, signalling sustained demand for civil works, pipelines, treatment assets and associated geotechnical investigations. Contractors, designers and materials suppliers will need to position for multi-AMP procurement, likely involving alliancing models and capacity to deliver large, phased programmes rather than one-off schemes.

Construction has started on the £1bn Golden Valley cyber and technology campus in Cheltenham, a major expansion adjacent to GCHQ intended to cluster national security and defence-sector organisations. The first phase will deliver core infrastructure and initial office and lab space to anchor a wider mixed-use development, with subsequent phases expected to add high-spec commercial floorspace, residential units and supporting transport links. For civil and geotechnical teams, early works will focus on site servicing, ground engineering and phased utilities to support secure, resilient data and research facilities.

Greenpeace analysis of England and Wales utility data finds that daily distribution losses from ageing mains and service pipes exceed the volumes saved by temporary hosepipe bans during drought restrictions. The campaign group argues that leakage, often above 20% of put‑in‑system water in some regions, should be tackled through accelerated mains replacement, active pressure management and improved leak detection rather than relying primarily on domestic outdoor-use bans. For civil and water engineers, the figures strengthen the case for prioritising network renewal, smart metering and district metered areas in drought resilience planning.

Major upgrade works at Junction 9 of the M3 at Winchester are progressing, with National Highways advancing construction of a new bridge and the A34 northbound link to separate strategic and local traffic. The scheme involves reconfiguring the M3/A34 interchange geometry and building additional link capacity to reduce weaving movements between the southbound M3 and northbound A34. Contractors will need to manage complex staging under live motorway conditions, with significant temporary traffic management and phasing around the new bridge installation.

Plans have been lodged for a six‑turbine onshore wind farm extension in the East Riding of Yorkshire, making it one of the first new English onshore schemes to come forward since the government relaxed planning rules. The project would expand an existing renewable energy park, allowing connection to established grid and access infrastructure rather than building a standalone site. For civil and geotechnical teams, the brownfield-style extension suggests focused work on turbine foundations, access upgrades and grid reinforcement rather than full greenfield enabling works.

The National Transport Research Organisation is expanding tailored training, courses and workshops to upskill road and transport practitioners for current and future project pipelines across pavements, bridges, asset management and emerging technologies. Building on more than 60 years of applied research in Australian transport infrastructure, NTRO is packaging lessons from full-scale pavement trials, performance-based asphalt specifications and heavy vehicle network assessments into practitioner-focused programmes. For engineers, this offers structured pathways to deepen capability in areas such as mechanistic-empirical pavement design, condition data interpretation and whole-of-life asset planning.

Work is due to start on a £6.9M upgrade to Selset Reservoir, near Barnard Castle in County Durham, with Esh-Stantec delivering improvements to Teesdale’s strategic water supply assets for Northumbrian Water. The scheme is expected to focus on refurbishing existing raw water infrastructure and treatment interfaces at the reservoir, rather than building new storage, to improve resilience of supply to downstream works. Contractors and designers will need to manage construction around an operational impounding reservoir, with associated geotechnical, temporary works and water quality constraints.

Jacobs has secured three National Highways contracts, including design commissions for schemes on the M32 and M5 plus a separate project management framework role. The work is expected to cover highway and structures design, traffic management layouts and construction staging on heavily trafficked motorway sections, where lane occupation and possession windows are tightly constrained. For contractors and consultants, this signals upcoming opportunities in detailed design, temporary works and programme integration on these corridors as schemes move from options to delivery.

Kier has secured more than £51M of work to upgrade three Severn Trent wastewater treatment works at Droitwich, Warton and Worksop under the AMP8 capital programme. The projects will focus on process and capacity improvements to meet tighter discharge consents and resilience requirements across the Midlands network. Contractors, designers and suppliers can expect significant packages in civil, mechanical and electrical works as Severn Trent accelerates AMP8 delivery.

A £1.5bn YORbuild Major Works 2 framework has been awarded by Leeds City Council to deliver large public sector building schemes, with associated civil engineering, across Yorkshire and the Humber, the North East, Lincolnshire, Nottinghamshire, Derbyshire and parts of Leicestershire. The framework is intended for major works rather than minor capital programmes, giving councils and public bodies a pre-procured route for complex projects such as multi-storey public buildings, campus redevelopments and integrated civils packages. Contractors can expect multi-year pipelines with regional lotting, standardised NEC-style contracts and scope for early contractor involvement on constrained brownfield and urban sites.

Bam and Network Rail will this summer start replacing four 130-year-old London Overground bridges over roads in Forest Gate, east London, to address ageing wrought-iron and masonry structures carrying intensive commuter traffic. The works will require staged possessions on a busy orbital route, with temporary track support and road closures under constrained clearances typical of Victorian overbridges. For civil and rail engineers, key issues will be managing differential settlement at new abutments, upgrading to modern load standards, and controlling vibration and noise close to dense residential frontages.

ONR has significantly escalated regulatory attention on EDF’s Hartlepool nuclear power station, detailing the move in its latest annual report after identifying shortfalls in safety management and ageing plant risk controls. The regulator has placed the advanced gas-cooled reactor site under enhanced inspection, with increased frequency of site visits and more intrusive assessment of safety case implementation, maintenance backlogs and corrosion management. Civil and structural engineers working on life-extension or modification projects at Hartlepool can expect tighter scrutiny of concrete containment performance, seismic qualification and inspection records.

M Group has secured places on both the Buildings (large organisations) Framework and the Civils Framework at London Gatwick Airport, extending a relationship with the hub that has run for more than 43 years. The dual appointment positions the contractor for future terminal building upgrades, airside and landside civils, and associated structural and M&E packages across one of the UK’s busiest two-runway operations. For geotechnical and civils teams, this signals a steady pipeline of airfield pavement, foundations and landside infrastructure works under long-term framework governance.

Phase 1 of the £55M Preston and South Ribble Flood Risk Management Scheme has been completed by VolkerStevin for the Environment Agency, marking the first major upgrade to defences along this reach of the River Ribble. The works form part of a multi-phase programme to reduce fluvial and tidal flood risk to urban areas in Preston and South Ribble, where existing embankments and walls are locally substandard against current design flood levels. Engineers should watch for forthcoming phases that will tie into these initial assets and may require interface works on existing riverfront infrastructure.

Former Autostrade per l’Italia CEO Giovanni Castellucci has been sentenced to 12 years’ imprisonment, alongside convictions for 31 others, over the 2018 collapse of Genoa’s Morandi Bridge that killed 43 people and injured 13. The ruling centres on failures in managing the ageing cable-stayed structure’s stay-cable and deck corrosion, with prosecutors arguing that critical maintenance and strengthening were delayed despite known deterioration. For designers and asset managers, the case signals heightened personal liability where structural health monitoring, inspection records and intervention decisions do not match documented risk.