Geomechanics.io

£5.46M of rail works will be delivered by Network Rail across the East Midlands over two weekends this month, with additional engineering possessions scheduled for the August bank holiday. The programme includes track and asset renewals to support the forthcoming roll-out of digital signalling on the East Coast Main Line, where testing of the new systems is already under way. Possession planning and interface management with the East Coast digital signalling programme will be critical for contractors and designers working on track, civils and systems integration.

Egis has secured a place on Yorkshire Water’s £80M Technical Services and Assurance Framework for Asset Management Period 8 (AMP8), covering 2025–2030. The consultancy will provide design, assurance and programme support for water and wastewater infrastructure, including treatment works upgrades, trunk mains, and resilience schemes across Yorkshire’s 62,000km network. For geotechnical and civil teams, the framework signals a pipeline of condition assessment, ground investigation, and complex brownfield rehabilitation projects under tighter performance and regulatory targets.

Merseytravel has launched a £15M procurement for a single contractor to deliver early contractor involvement, detailed design and remedial works at eight ventilation stations serving the Kingsway and Queensway road tunnels under the River Mersey in Liverpool. The contract will cover refurbishment of ageing mechanical and electrical ventilation plant, structural repairs to ventilation buildings and shafts, and upgrades to control and monitoring systems. Engineers will need to manage works around live traffic, legacy tunnel infrastructure from the 1930s and 1970s, and strict operational air quality and fire-life-safety requirements.

Aecom has been appointed by Transport for London to deliver a feasibility study for new depots and sidings to support the Bakerloo Line Upgrade and the introduction of a modern train fleet. The work will examine options for stabling, maintenance and turnback capacity on a constrained deep Tube alignment, where existing facilities at London Road and Queen’s Park are already heavily utilised. Outcomes will shape land-take, track layout, power and signalling interface requirements that contractors and designers will need to accommodate in later GRIP stages.

Heathrow’s proposed third runway and associated terminal works are being framed as a long-term skills engine, with construction expected to run for more than a decade and demand tens of thousands of roles across civils, geotechnical, tunnelling and systems integration. Delivery partners are planning large-scale apprenticeship pipelines, on-site training centres and modular offsite fabrication hubs to tackle shortages in steel fixing, ground engineering and digital design. For contractors and consultants, the programme signals sustained demand for BIM-led delivery, complex phasing around live airside operations and high-volume materials logistics.

A £3.3M upgrade at Anglian Water’s Canwick Water Recycling Centre in Lincolnshire is nearing completion, with final commissioning of expanded storm storage now underway. The scheme centres on increasing offline storm tank capacity to reduce combined sewer overflows to the River Witham and improve compliance with Environment Agency storm spill permits. Civil works, new mechanical screening and upgraded control systems will alter hydraulic behaviour during peak events, so operators will need updated network models and revised operating rules for intense rainfall.

Restoration of the historic Kyre Bridge in Tenbury Wells has been completed by Worcestershire County Council after inspections identified structural deterioration that threatened its continued use. Works focused on preserving the existing load-carrying masonry structure while keeping the crossing operational for local residents, businesses and visitors. The scheme signals ongoing investment in life-extension of ageing rural bridge stock, where targeted structural repairs and protection can defer full replacement.

Innovate UK has opened a £3M competition for electrochemical ultra long duration energy storage (ULDES) technologies capable of delivering multi-hour to multi-day grid support beyond conventional lithium-ion systems. Funding will target UK-based businesses developing novel chemistries, cell architectures or balance-of-plant designs that can be deployed at scale for transmission and distribution infrastructure. Civil and geotechnical engineers should expect emerging requirements for foundations, enclosures and thermal management for large stationary electrochemical plants integrated with substations and renewable generation sites.

Oxfordshire County Council has applied to the Department for Transport for £8M to repair Donnington Bridge in south Oxford, which is currently subject to weight restrictions limiting heavier vehicles. The funding would address structural deterioration that has reduced the bridge’s load-carrying capacity, with works expected to focus on strengthening key elements such as bearings, deck and supporting piers. For local highways and freight operators, restoring full capacity on this Thames crossing is critical to maintaining network resilience and avoiding longer diversion routes through central Oxford.

Droughts and historically low river levels across Europe are forcing several nuclear power plants that rely on once-through river water cooling to cut output or temporarily shut down to stay within thermal discharge limits. Facilities on major rivers such as the Rhône and Rhine are constrained by maximum allowable downstream temperature rises of only a few degrees Celsius, reducing available cooling capacity during heatwaves. Civil and mechanical engineers are being pushed to consider retrofitting closed‑loop or hybrid cooling towers, larger intake structures and alternative water sources to maintain design output under more frequent low‑flow conditions.

SANY telehandlers distributed by CEA across Australia now integrate a 360-degree Pedestrian Recognition System that uses cameras and AI to detect people in blind spots created by the boom and attachment. The system provides real-time visual and audible alerts around the full machine envelope, targeting typical collision risks in tight construction, infrastructure and materials-handling sites. For fleet owners and contractors, the technology supports proactive exclusion-zone management and incident reporting, particularly on mixed-traffic sites where telehandlers work alongside ground crews and delivery vehicles.

A $21 million contract has been awarded to upgrade sections of the 645‑kilometre Central Arnhem Road, which links Nhulunbuy to the Stuart Highway and services multiple Aboriginal communities. Works will focus on strengthening and sealing priority unsealed segments that currently constrain heavy freight for mining and pastoral operations and limit all‑weather access. For geotechnical and pavement engineers, the project signals further demand for robust designs on expansive clays and flood‑prone formations typical of remote Northern Territory corridors.

Final testing of driverless trains is underway on Sydney’s Southwest Metro, converting the 125-year-old T3 Bankstown heavy rail line into a fully automated rapid transit corridor between Sydenham and Bankstown. The trial period is stress‑testing the integrated signalling, platform screen doors and new power systems across the full length of the connected line before handover to Metro Trains Sydney. For civil and rail engineers, the project is a major brownfield conversion case study in upgrading legacy track, stations and structures to metro‑grade headways and safety systems.

Applications have opened for $50 million in Federal funding for new or upgraded cycling and walking paths, drawn from Australia’s $500 million Active Transport Fund. The program will support design and construction of separated bike lanes, shared-use paths and pedestrian links over a 10‑year period, as outlined in the 2026–27 Budget. Councils and state road agencies can now bid for projects that close missing links, retrofit corridors alongside arterial roads and improve grade-separated crossings, with co‑funding and deliverability likely to be key assessment criteria.

Yorkshire Water has appointed Egis to Lot 1 of its £80m AMP8 technical services and assurance framework, a multi-year contract starting 1 July and running to 2030 with options to extend to 2032. Lot 1, worth a combined £12.7m, will see Egis deliver project-level engineering and design services across civil, mechanical and electrical disciplines, including feasibility testing, optioneering and construction support for critical infrastructure upgrades. The work targets long-term asset health and environmental performance across Yorkshire’s water and wastewater networks.

Osprey has opened a new headquarters in Portishead, consolidating its engineering, heavy transport, marine operations and project delivery teams to support integrated, engineering-led transport and installation planning for complex infrastructure, energy and defence projects. The expanded facility is positioned to handle continued growth in abnormal load movements, marine logistics and multi-modal heavy lift operations from a single hub. Proximity to universities and colleges in Bristol and North Somerset underpins the Osprey Skills Academy, targeting students, graduates and early‑career professionals for specialist project cargo and heavy engineering roles.

Muir Group reported a 30% rise in turnover to £113.9m for the year to January 2026, with profit before tax exceeding £3m. Muir Construction was the main driver, delivering £85.7m of segment turnover and more than doubling profit before tax from £2.2m to £4.8m. The figures signal strong demand in its construction pipeline, giving the contractor greater headroom for bidding, risk management and investment in project delivery capacity.

The Association for Environment Conscious Building has appointed architect and decarbonisation specialist Ste Garlick as CEO and business leader Chris Iredale as COO under a dual fractional leadership model, allowing both to retain external roles. Garlick, strategic and advisory lead for decarbonisation and retrofit at BDP, will focus on evidence-based building performance, retrofit and collaboration across the AECB’s growing membership. Iredale, who previously scaled a manufacturing business to over £9m turnover and delivered 38% direct sales growth for a construction group, will drive operational development, governance and organisational growth.

Pinnacle Group has appointed Zen Housing to manage 60 intermediate rent apartments at Market House within the Camden Goods Yard redevelopment near Chalk Farm and Primrose Hill, drawing over 600 priority applications for the units. The agreement takes Pinnacle’s management portfolio on behalf of Zen to 400 homes, consolidating a pipeline that now includes 85 recently handed-over units in New Malden and a further 60 due shortly. For housing and regeneration teams, the scheme signals sustained demand for mid-market rental in high-value London locations and growing roles for for‑profit registered providers.

Caddick Construction has been appointed principal contractor to design and build a four-storey Big Yellow Self Storage facility on Scotswood Road, Newcastle, providing 60,000 net sq ft of internal storage plus customer loading bays, staff welfare, office and reception areas. The scheme includes roof-mounted solar PV, on-site battery storage, car parking, landscaping and external works, and is targeting BREEAM ‘Very Good’ on completion in summer 2027. The contract forms part of Caddick’s £127m regional workload since opening its Durham office in 2025, alongside projects such as the DPD parcel hub at Newton Aycliffe.

Modular building specialist McAvoy has been appointed to the Everything Estates framework, giving UK public sector, devolved administrations and third-sector clients direct-award access to its offsite manufactured building solutions. The framework enables estates teams to procure factory-built interim or permanent accommodation that is delivered to site for rapid installation, helping address capacity pressures and replacement of ageing facilities on constrained, operational campuses. McAvoy says the controlled factory environment improves programme certainty and quality, which will appeal to clients managing tight timelines and live-site disruption risks.

The University of Hertfordshire has appointed CBRE to deliver integrated facilities management across its 1.8m sq ft campus, covering technical maintenance, cleaning, horticulture, waste and pest control. Services will run on an integrated, data-led computer-aided facilities management and helpdesk platform, with BMS-driven energy strategies to optimise building performance and campus operations. CBRE will also create an on-site campus ambassador role and provide 320 hours of student work experience annually, feeding into its Next Generation talent scheme.

Sphere has completed and handed over One Eastside, a 51-storey build-to-rent tower and Birmingham’s tallest skyscraper, to Pension Insurance Corporation, delivering 667 rental apartments plus co-working and amenity space on a remediated brownfield site. Construction used £15.7m of locally sourced materials, created 87 local jobs and 11 apprenticeships, with 61% of labour drawn from the surrounding area. The scheme incorporates new green space, on-site renewable energy infrastructure and the planting of 620 trees under the One Eastside Forest initiative to offset resident move-in emissions.

Anglian Water has appointed Barhale as principal contractor for an £18m stormwater scheme at Walton-on-the-Naze, centred on a new 5,000m³ “pill shaped” storm tank built in diaphragm wall construction adjacent to the existing terminal pumping station. The tank geometry is designed to avoid an existing aquifer and sewer, with excavation from within the wall to minimise the footprint on a constrained coastal site. Additional storage will be linked to the current tank via an 84m, 1,200mm concrete jacked pipeline installed by microtunnelling to manage extreme rainfall events and protect bathing water quality.