News in brief: 16 August 2006 (p. 3)

The London Borough of Newham has advertised its Building Schools for the Future programme. The first phase of schools will be worth £150m, rising to £260m over the first five years, and reaching a possible total of £510m overall.

South London-based Clapham Park Homes and Clapham Park Development are inviting contractors to bid for a 10-year framework worth £300m to redevelop the Clapham Park estate, which comprises more than 2,000 homes.

The London Borough of Haringey's arms-length management organisation, Homes for Haringey, is seeking contractors to undertake up to £250m-worth of work to upgrade its housing stock to the Decent Homes Standard.

Yorkshire Water Services has advertised two framework deals: rehabilitation and renewal of clean water underground assets (£100m) and repair and maintenance of clean-water underground assets and installation of new mains (£80m).

Hackney Homes, the London Borough of Hackney's ALMO, is asking contractors to bid for its reactive repairs and planned maintenance term contracts for its 31,200 homes. The deal is worth £59m over four years.

English Partnerships and Northamptonshire County Council are seeking a contractor to undertake a £16.7m scheme known as the West Northamptonshire infrastructure and flood mitigation project.

Firms are being invited to bid for the Bishop Ramsey Church of England School's £16m scheme to amalgamate its lower and upper schools at a site in Ruislip, Middlesex.

Barhale Construction's highest paid director, Dennis Curran, enjoyed a pay package running to £534,000 last year, even though the company plunged into the red. Barhale's turnover (in the 16 months to 31 December 2005) of almost £120m generated a pre-tax loss of £3.9m.

Three million working days are lost every year in the construction industry due to occupational ill-health, according to UCATT. And the union says first results of a pilot occupational health scheme show that one-third of the workforce needs early intervention on health issues.

[Contract Journal, 16 August 2006, p.3]