Stories about fly tipping have become a regular feature on national media recently, as the blatant disregard for the environment, public health and safety, and seemingly increasing scale of the sites being used for dumping demand increasing attention to the problem. Construction waste isn’t all that gets dumped but is at the heart of the problem, as an appeal from Hampshire County Council for information about waste dumped on an A31 junction as we went to press proves.
Blog and Comment
Public Accounts Committee launches five new inquiries
Public spending watchdog the Public Accounts Committee (PAC) has set itself up for a busy period between now and at least the summer parliamentary recess in July with the announcement that it will be holding inquiries into a range of major infrastructure projects.
Hinkley Point C hit by new delay and rising costs
Further significant damage to the well tattered reputation of the UK’s infrastructure delivery capabilities is being delivered by news that Hinkley Point C will now cost nearer £50 billion at current prices than the £15 billion that was the first number the project’s supporters thought of when costs were first estimated at 2015 prices.
Competition regulator could earn the thanks of an entire industry
A week before Christmas, competition regulator the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) released an interim report that passed without too much notice, part of its market study into the civil engineering market for roads and railways.
Planning changes may be aiming at the wrong target
The UK’s planners must feel beleaguered more than any group of public sector employees at the moment. Reports that there aren’t enough of them to cope with the pace of housebuilding and infrastructure investment that the government says it wants abound.
HS2 – will we see its like again?
Public Account Committee Chair Sir Geoffrey Clifton-Brown’s first annual report as Chairman scathingly criticised the continued failure of the DfT and HS2 Ltd to work together effectively to ensure adequate financial oversight of the project. He had to confess that the committee was no more certain of government’s ability to deliver HS2 than it was ten years ago.
Why is one project ‘mega’ and another one not, PAC asks
It is encouraging that the government says it has accepted the recent recommendations of the Office for Value for Money regarding how to improve how large projects are managed – or mismanaged, as often seems to have been the case.
Same old, same old for the post Cunliffe construction sector?
So Ofwat is to be abolished and replaced with a new super regulator following Sir Jon Cunliffe’s Independent Water Commission report into what has been called a failing and broken industry. That it is has been failing has been fairly obvious for a number of years; the wonder is that the industry and its regulators have got away with underinvestment and blatant disregard of the law by deliberately dumping untreated sewage into rivers and the sea for so long.
End promised to northern neglect
The north of England has for years complained, not without justification, that it is relatively ignored by government when it comes to general funding and investment in infrastructure improvements especially, while its largesse over-focuses on an already wealthy south.
Anti-cartel enforcers warn of focus on public procurement using AI tools
Cartels are by their nature secretive so few outside the group fixing prices or rigging bids or other anti competitive behaviour know what is going on until it hits the headlines. Yet few in the industry are surprised when they hear about prosecutions; this behaviour seems to have always been resignedly regarded as ‘one of those things’, and endemic.