New Civil Engineer
Marissa Lynch
I studied journalism in Brisbane, Queensland before taking a job on the sunny Gold Coast in Australia for the daily News Limited paper the Gold Coast Bulletin. As a news reporter I covered everything from business to property to health to lifestyle and even managed to swing rides in both a Spitfire and a Black Hawk helicopter. I did the typical Australian rite of passage by travelling around Europe and moving to the UK for a working holiday. Two years’ later, after stints at the Department of Energy and Climate Change and in Emap launching the World Infrastructure Summit, I’m now firmly engrossed in the world of infrastructure and will be focusing on international major projects for NCE (and staying with the help of my EU passport). Declan and I are neither married, nor related.
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Special report: funding for the floods
1-Feb-2012
Next week environment secretary Caroline Spelman is expected to announce a raft of new flood defence schemes across England and Wales that will receive funding. NCE reports on how the Environment Agency is increasing the number of homes protected despite a 15% budget cut. -
Looming Large
15 December 2011
The London Gateway port will be a UK record breaker when it opens for business, but right now it’s the ground engineering that is making the headlines. Marissa Lynch reports. -
Pressure on as water prices set to rise
14-Dec-2011
Plans for a tougher water abstraction regime as outlined in the government’s water White Paper could lead to a huge strain on water-intensive businesses through increased water prices, engineers this week told NCE. -
Autumn Statement 2011: Experts warn pensions investment years away
30-Nov-2011
UK pension fund investment in infrastructure could still be years away, despite the government’s pledge to pave the way for such spending in the next few years, leading project finance experts said this week. -
Grontmij calls in KPMG to help 'improve financial structure'
29-Nov-2011
Consultant Grontmij has today revealed that it has called in auditor KPMG to “conduct a thorough review and to provide insight into its various financial options”. -
Australia sees dramatic growth in engineering services in the last quarter
25-Nov-2011
Australia’s engineering sector is seeing record growth, according to new figures released from its government’s Bureau of Statistics. -
Gateway gets going
24 November 2011
Construction of the £1.5bn London Gateway port is racing ahead and attracting Royal interest. Marissa Lynch visits the Thames Estuary to chart progress. -
Road traffic growth to grow significantly in 20 years, says report
21-Nov-2011
There will be at least 4M more cars on the UK’s roads in the next 20 years significantly increasing traffic delays and hampering the economy, new research from the RAC Foundation and Arup shows. -
Bold plans for tolls to get road spending moving
17 November 2011
Tolling of the A14 and A1 this week emerged as the most extreme in a series of proposals to get much needed cash flowing into the road construction industry. -
Network Rail to be contractor/consultant
13 October 2011
Network Rail is to launch an infrastructure projects group in April next year to provide civil engineering consultancy as well as construction services. -
Lincolnshire road opens one year late and over budget
13 October 2011
A 7km stretch of the new 21km long A1073 road - which is believed to be the biggest greenfield road project in the country - has remained closed after cracking was detected in an embankment and the road in July last year due to subsidence problems. -
TfL urges councils to pool road works resources
13 October 2011
Transport for London (TfL) is leading a new approach to tendering road works by encouraging London boroughs to join forces to increase efficiency and guarantee longer term contracts. -
London Gateway rail line construction contract at prequalification stage
6-Oct-2011
DP World is in the prequalification stage for a construction contract on a freight rail line to connect its giant London Gateway port to the main line. -
London Gateway port work steams ahead to meet 2013 target
6-Oct-2011
The London Gateway port project was this week steaming ahead on diaphragm walling for the new quay wall with the sections for the first berth of three now complete. -
Rail spend to fall as industry sets out vision
6 October 2011
Network Rail plans to make £1.3bn worth of cost savings from 2014 while also reducing the amount it will spend on enhancements. -
UK rail set to see less capital expenditure from 2014
29-Sep-2011
Enhancement work on the nation’s railway will drop from a budgeted £11.8bn in this period (2009 to 2014) to an estimated £10.1bn from 2014 to 2019, the Initial Industry Plan (IIP) has said. -
Construction faces Chinese invasion
29 September 2011
Chinese contractors will infiltrate the UK market as the government prepares to allow increased investment in UK infrastructure, a leading consultant based in China said this week. -
Consultants embark on Libya reconstruction trade mission
29 September 2011
UK consultants this week re-entered Libya on a trade mission as a Libyan government official told a London conference that the country would honour Gaddafi-era construction and engineering contracts. -
Arup examines Libya's infrastructure needs
28-Sep-2011
Arup has returned to Libya this week as it embarked on a trade mission with UK trade minister Lord Green on Monday, to discuss the country’s most pressing infrastructure needs. -
Gaddafi-era contracts to be honoured in Libya
26-Sep-2011
The UK representative for Libya’s National Transitional Council said today that engineering contracts let under the Gaddafi regime would be honoured under the new government, as long as no corruption was involved. -
Chinese projects will not be halted by economic downturn, says Atkins MD
23-Sep-2011
China’s financial woes will not affect infrastructure projects, despite worldwide concerns about economic slowdown, Atkins China managing director Samson Sin has told NCE. -
Consultant Clarke Bond Group rescued from administration
23-Sep-2011
Consultant Clarke Bond has shed around 100 staff after going into administration. -
High speed to Hong Kong: UK firms need to go East
22 September 2011
British firms have been warned that they risk missing out on Hong Kong’s next infrastructure boom if they do not step up their presence in the region. -
Final report into Deepwater Horizon criticises staff training and poor maintenance
15-Sep-2011
The final report into the massive Gulf of Mexico oil spill from the Deepwater Horizon platform has found that BP’s conduct “violated a number of federal offshore safety regulations” as did other connected companies Transocean and Halliburton. -
Clegg's infrastructure plan dismissed by economic think tank
15-Sep-2011
An economic think tank has slammed Nick Clegg’s plan to give infrastructure a “new special priorty status” saying that it will not bring about growth. -
Firms take a cautious view on speedy return to Libya
15 September 2011
UK civils firms were this week cautiously surveying the security situation in Libya before returning to their infrastructure contracts and tendering for new work in the region. -
Tube suffers dip in performance during winter 2010/2011
13-Sep-2011
Transport for London has published figures showing a decline in performance of the Tube in the autumn and winter of 2010/11, blaming strikes and new systems. -
DfT rejects proposed winter resilience third rail working group
13-Sep-2011
The Department for Transport (DfT) does not believe that the government should establish a third rail working group nor should it have oversight of airports’ snow plans, it said in its response to a House of Commons Transport Committee winter resilience report. -
Stagecoach calls for tougher cable theft stance
12-Sep-2011
Transport group Stagecoach is calling on the government to introduce tough new measures to tackle the growing problem of cable theft on the UK rail network, which is said to cost the economy £770M annually. -
Osborne announces Chinese infrastructure investment in the UK
9-Sep-2011
Chancellor George Osborne today announced that the UK has agreed to allow Chinese financial institutions to directly invest in UK infrastructure projects or related bonds and funds. -
North America and UK prove tough for Atkins
9-Sep-2011
Atkins chairman Allan Cook yesterday told its annual shareholder meeting that economic conditions in the UK “remain difficult”. -
Navigational concerns raised over floating Thames pathway
9-Sep-2011
Questions have been raised about whether London mayor Boris Johnson’s planned 12m wide floating river walk along the Thames will compromise safety and the navigational channel. -
Latest copper cable theft causes hundreds of thousands of pounds damage
7-Sep-2011
Thieves who stole 50m to 60m of copper cabling from a signalling system near London Bridge caused “hundreds of thousands of pounds” in damage and almost a day’s worth of delays to busy services. -
Hurricane Irene damage bill as high as £6.3bn
6-Sep-2011
The damage bill following Hurricane Irene could be as high as between $7bn (£4.4bn) and $10bn (£6.3bn), US risk management firm Kinetic Analysis Corporation said today. -
Cambridgeshire claims £55M from Bam over busway delays
5-Sep-2011
Cambridgeshire County Council is seeking to recover £54.7M from contractor Bam Nuttall and parent firm Royal Bam Group for its delayed Guided Busway project. -
Clipper shelves UK wind turbine plant
25-Aug-2011
The Crown Estate has confirmed that a landmark deal with Clipper to manufacture the world’s largest wind turbine in the UK has been terminated. -
Height restriction follows Christchurch quake
25 August 2011
Experts this week raised concerns about Christchurch City Council’s plan to restrict the height of future buildings in the earthquake-hit city to a maximum 29m. -
California high speed rail makes progress
19-Aug-2011
California has managed to secure extra funding for its planned high speed rail route and has begun drafting environmental impact assessments for the route. -
Cambridgeshire lodges busway legal claim with TCC
18-Aug-2011
Cambridgeshire County Council has lodged a legal claim with the Technology and Construction Court for money it claims is owed by Bam Nuttall on its recently opened guided busway, NCE has learned. -
HSE to focus on small work sites
17-Aug-2011
The Health and Safety Executive (HSE) has said it will focus more closely on small construction sites and businesses in the coming year, because they are more likely to have “unacceptable standards”. -
Shell says oil spill fix did not work
17-Aug-2011
One barrel of oil a day is still escaping from a leak on Shell’s Gannet Alpha oil platform, despite an attempt to isolate the leak by shutting off surrounding valves in the pipeline. -
Amey rail workers vote to strike
11-Aug-2011
Amey’s rail contracting staff have voted to strike in a dispute over pay and conditions, the rail union RMT announced today. -
CECA hopeful of workloads stabilising
11-Aug-2011
The workload of civil engineering contractors has begun to offer signs it may be stabilising, according to a new survey by the Civil Engineering Contractors Association (CECA). -
Network Rail battles to cure Croydon lines after mudslide
11 August 2011
Network Rail was this week facing further work to fix damaged signalling, track and electrified rail following a mudslide in south London last week, despite already carrying out a major clean-up operation. -
Cable theft stalls newly opened Gautrain
10-Aug-2011
A section of South Africa’s Gautrain is not in operation this morning after thieves stole copper cable on the line. -
Cambridgeshire busway green light for weekend
2-Aug-2011
Cambridgeshire County Council’s busway will finally open to the public on Sunday, despite a two-year delay and a protracted battle with contractor Bam Nuttall. -
Croydon railway mudslide clear-up underway
1-Aug-2011
Two of the five railway lines affected by a mudslide yesterday near South Croydon re-opened yesterday evening, while engineers continued working through the night to remove 2,400t of debris and repair a burst water main. -
Engineers defend HS2
28 July 2011
Engineers and the government have hit back at a report which last week labelled the High Speed 2 (HS2) rail line from London to the North as the “latest in a long series of government big-project disasters.” -
Government targets savings from PFI jobs
28 July 2011
The Treasury last week announced a plan to deliver at least £1.5bn of savings across the 495 operational Private Finance Initiative (PFI) projects in England. -
Rose quits Infrastructure UK as doubts cloud its future
28 July 2011
Treasury body Infrastructure UK (IUK) was facing an uncertain future this week after acting chief executive Andy Rose resigned. -
HS2 economic case fundamentally flawed: report in summary
20-Jul-2011
High Speed 2 will be the “latest in a long series of government big-project disasters”, a report by an influential economic think tank has found. -
BAA told to sell two airports including Stansted
19-Jul-2011
The Competition Commission has confirmed that it will require BAA to sell Stansted and either Glasgow or Edinburgh in the hope that passengers and airlines will benefit from greater competition. -
Acting IUK chief exec resigns
18-Jul-2011
Infrastructure UK acting chief executive officer, Andy Rose, has announced his resignation from the planning body after only seven months in the role. -
UK engineering firms to benefit from UK-China summit deals
14 July 2011
UK civil engineering firms could be some of the greatest benefactors from a host of memorandums of understanding and trade deals with China signed late last month. -
Arup engineer denies saying Qatar 2022 World Cup to be played in 'three halves'
8-Jul-2011
An Arup engineer has hit back at reports that he said the Qatar 2022 Fifa World Cup will be played as a game of “three halves”. -
Europeans to design 'iconic' Doha Crossing
8-Jul-2011
A new crossing that will connect the New Doha International Airport and the West Bay financial district in the Qatari capital is being designed by a European firm and will be announced by the beginning of September, a senior Qatari ministry official said this week. -
Atkins plans to increase Qatar presence
6-Jul-2011
Atkins outgoing chief executive Keith Clarke has announced plans to exponentially increase its Qatar presence by expanding staff numbers from 150 to 1,000 in two years in his new role developing the Atkins business in the Middle East. -
Curbing the carbon
1-Jul-2011
Much debate surrounds the question of whether civil engineering can ever be truly sustainable. The answer depends very much on what your definition of sustainability is, CH2MHill global water sustainability director Jay Witherspoon tells Marissa Lynch. -
Clients stymie R&D spending
30 June 2011
Britain’s construction industry is seen as inert and uncompetitive in Europe because firms are reluctant to admit to clients what they spend on innovation, a European transport lobby group told NCE this week. -
PFI contracts ‘shocking abuse’ of taxpayer cash, says MP
26 May 2011
Conservative MP Jesse Norman said this week that he wanted contractors, consultants and banks to give back to the taxpayer between £500M and £1bn earned from PFI. -
Cities slicker
25-May-2011
Using IT to make city infrastructure more efficient is the new way forward for the modern urban engineer. Marissa Lynch reports. -
World beater
25-May-2011
Building the largest container port in the world is a major challenge for “occasional client” Abu Dhabi Ports Company. Marissa Lynch reports. -
Spending cuts bite into US high speed rail programme
21 April 2011
Industry experts this week warned that the future looked bleak for the United States high speed rail programme as Congress revealed it had slashed funding. -
High speed line in limbo as Portugal axes project promoter
14 April 2011
Portugal’s High Speed Rail company is being disbanded leaving construction of the 176km line between Poceirão in Portugal and Caia in Spain in limbo. -
Boubyan port breaks ground
07 April 2011
Ground breaking finally began this week on one of the Middle East’s largest port projects, a £730M commercial sea-port on Boubyan Island in Kuwait. -
Unrest hits Middle East work
24 March 2011
Consultants and contractors working in the Middle East were this week counting their losses while trying to redeploy staff around the region as anti-government protests spread. -
Middle East unrest threatens to stall major civils projects
2-Mar-2011
Engineering firms in the Middle East were this week cautiously monitoring how protests in the Gulf state of Oman unfold, as unrest spreads within the region and threatens to stall major infrastructure projects. -
New Dubai airport hit by second nine month delay
17 February 2011
New construction delays have hit Dubai’s Al Maktoum International airport in Jebel Ali, which is set to be the largest in the world. -
Atkins wins UAE rail contract
27 January 2011
Union Railway, the master developer of the cross-country rail network in the United Arab Emirates (UAE), this week brought in UK consultant Atkins after cancelling two consultancy contracts on the $11bn (£7bn) project. -
Plan to sell Tube station naming rights
27 January 2011
The sale of advertising naming rights for entire London Underground (LU) stations has been mooted as a way of creating a significant financial windfall for cash-strapped Transport for London (TfL).
