Yorkshire Water plans £180m of improvements to cut storm overflow discharges
Yorkshire Water is to invest £180m in reducing discharges from storm overflows in the next two years.
More than 190 overflows have been earmarked for investment as part of the plan and work on the first batch of improvements is already under way, with work being carried out on overflows which discharge into all the major rivers throughout the region.
The investment is in addition to the £147m being spent as part of the utility’s current five-year business plan and the work being planned between 2025 and 2030, which will see the company’s largest environmental investment since privatisation.
Nicola Shaw, CEO of Yorkshire Water, said: “We did not act quickly enough to tackle the issue of storm overflows into rivers. Despite the number and duration of discharges from storm overflows in Yorkshire decreasing in 2022 we understand they happen more than our customers would like, and we are determined to tackle this issue and do our bit for river health.
“Tackling overflows, which were designed into the system as a relief valve, is a priority for us, but it is also a significant task. In Yorkshire, we have over 2,200 overflows and we know replumbing the whole of Yorkshire is not a quick fix as it would be both significantly disruptive and costly to customers. But, further investment from our shareholders is helping us tackle this issue.
“We’ve now launched a project that will see £180m spent on storm overflow improvements in the next two years. This will target the overflows we know are operating more frequently and for longer. Our teams are already on the ground working on the first of these overflows and the investment will help to reduce discharges by at least 20%, but in most cases, we’ll be going way beyond that and reducing them significantly.”
Projects will involve building additional storage tanks to retain more wastewater, holding it back, so it doesn’t go through overflows, redirecting rainwater away from sewers and into water butts or SUDs, removing water sources that shouldn’t be plumbed in the network and preventing water naturally seeping in and changing operations at the wider sewer network and pumping stations that could reduce the need for overflows to kick in to action.
Nicola added: “Storm overflows are a priority for us and that’s why we’ve funded these improvements. We’re going beyond the government’s storm overflow reduction plan and we’re already planning our largest ever environmental investment programme between 2025 and 2030, this is only the beginning as we embark on the biggest investment programme since privatisation.”
Drax pumps almost £38,000 into more than 20 good causes
Renewable energy company Drax has donated over £37,500 from its Community Fund to 26 local groups and causes near to Drax Power Station in North Yorkshire.
Jane Breach, Drax UK Community Manager, said: “Drax has a long tradition of giving back to the communities we operate in, and this year we have stepped up our community funding to allow us to support even more good causes and ensure our business has a positive impact on people, nature and the climate. “We are pleased to announce that in the first round of community funding this year we will be awarding close to £60,000 of grants to 40 different organisations in the UK which support STEM education and skills or work to improve the local community.” Of the total, £37,530 has been awarded to 26 different community-led projects local to Drax Power Station near Selby. This includes developing an outdoor space for volunteering and educational opportunities at St John’s Church in Goole, purchasing equipment to deliver a STEM programme for children at Carlton Playgroup, helping Kellingley Juniors Football Club to purchase sports kit and the Stillingfleet Community Group to deliver a village playground project. Jonny Patton, Operations Director at St John’s Church, said: “As the only green space in the centre of the town, St John’s churchyard has the potential to make a significant contribution to the lives of the people of Goole, and play a key role in the rejuvenation of the town centre. This donation from Drax will help us to progress plans for our project ‘Life and Hope Gardens’, which will be an inclusive and accessible space for volunteering, community-led projects and school activities as well as create opportunities to reduce social isolation and improve health and wellbeing.” Drax’s Community Fund donations are awarded once a quarter to local projects in the regions where Drax operates which fit into the following categories:- STEM education, skills development, and employability
- Improving green spaces in local communities
- Improving our communities
Private sector activity could be poised for a modest rebound, says CBI
After ten consecutive months of decline, private sector activity could be poised for something of a rebound, according to the CBI.
It’s predicting a return to modest growth, with business and professional services expected to lead the recovery with an upswing in activity (+20%), while consumer services activity and distribution sales are expected to stabilise (-3% and -1% respectively). Only manufacturing output is expected to fall, but at a slower pace once again (-5%).
All major subsectors saw activity fall over the last quarter. Services business volumes declined at a broadly similar pace to last month (-8% from -7% in April), reflecting a mild contraction in business & professional services (-4%) and a sharper fall in consumer services (-24%).
Distribution sales resumed their downward trend after two flat months (-17% from +1% in April), falling at the fastest pace since November 2022. Likewise, manufacturing output continued to fall, but at a slightly slower pace than last month (-10% from -15% in April).
Alpesh Paleja, CBI Lead Economist, said: “Amid the enduring headwinds of strong cost pressures and labour shortages, it’s clear that the private sector continues to face difficult trading conditions. However, the latest Growth Indicator shows that businesses remain hopeful of seeing activity rebound over the three months ahead.
“Falling wholesale energy prices will eventually relieve some pressure on firms’ margins, while lower household energy bills from July will support consumer spending, in turn giving a boost to broader demand conditions.”
Groundbreaking new conference responds to farming crime wave sweeping rural Britain
The NFU HQ at Stoneleigh hosted a major conference for the National Rural Crime Unit involving police forces from across the UK to discuss a coherent approach to rural crime, including sharing best practice, effective tactics and managing joint operations.
NFU Vice-President David Exwood said: “Highly organised gangs of criminals continue to plague the great British countryside, stealing livestock and expensive GPS equipment, trespassing on private land and regularly fly-tipping tons of rubbish; their actions significantly impact farm businesses, farming families and rural communities, both financially and emotionally.”
Following the first session of the event, almost every police force unit in the room confirmed they have a dedicated rural crime team; the few which still plan to develop these dedicated teams have already set up processes to ensure national police priorities on rural crime are addressed.
Superintendent Andy Huddleston, Head of the NRCU, highlighted the recent upsurge in thefts of tractor GPS units, with every police force in the room indicating that they have dealt with such thefts. New research from NFU Mutual has revealed the cost of GPS theft in the first four months of 2023 exceeded £500,000, more than double compared to the same period last year.
The Superintendent praised the wok of rural crime leads across the UK but acknowledged “the need and want to do more”. He said: “There is an urgent need to improve co-ordination and partnership problem solving, regionally and nationally. The newly-formed NRCU is designed to do this and support UK police forces to combat the organised crime groups that target rural communities”.
Bob Henderson, NFU Mutual lead on Rural Crime explained how NFU Mutual has set up a dedicated agricultural vehicle theft unit and has collaborated with police forces to seize millions of poundsworth of stolen machinery. “This team is now part of the new Rural Crime Unit which will strengthen work at a national level so that specialist police resources can be targeted where they are needed most to protect farmers and the wider rural community. We are proud to be the primary funders of the new unit and wish it every success in its work.”
Greg Smith MP discussed his Equipment Theft (Prevention) Bill that aims to ensure security measures must be included on quad bikes at point of sale. The NFU has been working closely with the Home Office on the new Bill, along with NFU Mutual, and other key stakeholders. The Bill is currently passing through the Committee stage in the House of Lords.
Connecting with the world: business completes web translations for a dozen companies
A company with premises in Boston and Nottingham is bringing business home by translating web sites into a range of languages and ‘localising’ them too.
PAB Language Centres operates globally, and in the last quarter completed 11 website translations and localisations for clients, including into French, Spanish, Italian, Polish, Swedish, and Japanese.
Iwona Lebiedowicz, founder of PAB Languages Centre Ltd, said: “A multilingual website engages new audiences and opens the opportunity to become visible across international search engines. A properly localised website speaks directly to the consumer in their own language, enabling businesses and brands to compete with local and global players in their niche.
“Localisation is a comprehensive process that entails not only text translation but also other factors to bear in mind. These include modifying your content to respect local market habits, addressing economic, historical, and sometimes political references, adjusting images, icons, and colours to local tastes and culture, changing dates, addresses, phone numbers, and other details to fit a local format, and converting to local currencies and units of measure.
“The numbers are quite staggering – translating your website into English, Chinese, Japanese, Spanish, German, French, Portuguese and Italian enables you to reach 80% of the global online purchasing power – so it’s no surprise that an increasing number of businesses are looking to translate and localise their websites.”
It has UK offices in the East Midlands as well as Lincolnshire, Yorkshire, Cambridgeshire, and Essex. PAB works locally and internationally with clients from the UK and around the world.
“Localisation is a complex process and one that requires a huge range of skills and specialist knowledge. For these reasons, the process of localising a website is best handled by a team of professionals,” added Iwona.
Around 40% of internet users said they will never buy from websites that are not in their native language and 65% of non-native English speakers prefer content in their native tongue, even though they are highly proficient in English, according to CSA Research.
And in a 2022 study by PayPal, 57% of online shoppers said that they shopped internationally. In fact, two out of five global shoppers had made a cross-border purchase in the previous three months.
Property auctioneers merge with combined auctions
Two of the north’s largest property auction houses, North-West based Pugh and South Yorkshire based Mark Jenkinson, are combining their online property auction listings from this month.
Mark Jenkinson, which has been based in Sheffield for over 125 years, was acquired by Eddisons earlier this year, joining Pugh which was bought by Eddisons in 2016. Between them the two firms have sold a wide range of commercial, residential and land assets worth £94m in the last year.
Combining the lots of both auction houses, under the Pugh brand and as part of Eddisons, will provide a more extensive list of investment opportunities across the regions.
Pugh Managing Director Paul Thompson said: “This is an exciting development for our business and reinforces our strength and leading position in the northern property auction market. Combining the two very capable teams ensures we continue to deliver a high performing service to our selling and buying customers.”
Mark Jenkinson senior partner, Adrian Little, added: “Working with Pugh, as part of Eddisons, gives us a superb geographic reach, unrivalled market insight and a vast network of buyers and sellers.
“The personalised customer service our clients have always enjoyed will be backed by cutting-edge technology and strategic marketing support.”
Over £4m building improvements funding secured for Yorkshire schools
Property consultant Eddisons, which is headquartered in Leeds, has secured more than £20m of funding to improve buildings at schools across the UK, including more than £4m for Yorkshire schools, in the latest round of the Government’s Condition Improvement Fund (CIF).
Education sector specialist Eddisons has raised more than £200m in school funding over recent years and the latest round of secured funding for projects in Yorkshire includes £350,000 for the Yorkshire Collaborative Academies Trust to carry out fire safety and roofing works, and over £700,000 to fund a roofing project and asbestos removal for the Brooksbank School in Elland.
Ian Harrington, head of Eddisons specialist education team, said: “This is another year of fantastic results for both our clients and the team. However, the success also highlights once again the fact that education is one of the more poorly funded sectors, with 2,000 projects unsuccessful in their bids in this round of funding alone.
“We will continue to work with those schools and academies that were unsuccessful, to offer guidance on future bids, as well as offering advice on other funding opportunities that are available. With the total CIF pot remaining unchanged on last year, despite base rate inflation being at 11% and construction inflation nearer 30%, it was one the most fiercely competitive rounds of funding we’ve experienced.”
The CIF programme is an annual round of bidding under which academy schools and colleges can apply for funding for the upkeep and improvement of their buildings and to fund expansion projects for schools that have been rated good or outstanding by Ofsted. In total, the Department for Education received funding requests for over 3,000 projects this year, with 1,033 projects across 859 academies being allocated a share of the £456m.
Mr Harrington added: “The CIF bidding procedure is highly complex and Eddisons’ education team have built up huge knowledge and experience over the years to help deliver successful bids and projects that make a real difference to schools and to the people who study and work in them.
“Every year the process of submitting a successful CIF bid becomes ever more competitive and we are really pleased to say that we have maintained our position as a key adviser to the education sector, with an excellent success rate for our bids.”
The successful projects will all get underway shortly and will be project managed by Eddisons.
Positive signs for Yorkshire’s retail sector as Leeds and Sheffield emerge in UK’s top 10 growth cities
The Yorkshire region fares well in the retail sector with both Leeds and Sheffield ranked in the UK’s top 10 growth cities according to CBRE’s latest research report ‘Which City? Which Sector? Real Estate Prospects over the Next Decade’. Leeds is ranked fourth in the retail sector with Sheffield positioned eighth.
CBRE examined the growth prospects for 12 real estate sectors across the 50 largest regional towns and cities in the UK. Findings were informed by economic drivers (including GDP, employment and income growth), demographic trends and property market data such as supply pipeline, local universities and housing affordability. The top 10 performing cities and growth sectors were identified.
Ram Rasiah, senior director, CBRE said: “It’s great to see two Yorkshire cities in the top 10 list. Retail continues to adapt to changing consumer habits and repositioning the role of the store. Within this, the polarized performance of retail locations is becoming increasingly apparent. While small, local destinations continue to remain relevant through their convenience and regional schemes benefit from their critical mass, the performance of mid-sized locations has been more challenged.
“In contrast, larger locations deliver a greater catchment potential. And aligning these trends, population and expected population growth were among the metrics used in our analysis. Birmingham ranks strongest in this measure, followed by Leeds and Glasgow,” continued Rasiah.
Birmingham took the top spot for retail followed by Bristol and Manchester respectively.
Retail performance is not only driven by scale. CBRE’s research has shown that affluent cities see healthier property performance, have lower vacancy rates and experience higher rental and capital value growth. A review of average household incomes ranks Sheffield highly versus other locations. A comparison of cities highlights Bristol and Manchester with the strongest growth potential.
In addition, a critical driver of a retail location’s performance is the balance of supply and demand. Allowing for a shift of some spend online, CBRE estimates that the volume of retail floor space in the UK will need to decrease by 16% to reach average sales densities of 2015-2020. Ranking cities by floorspace per capita and a review of vacancy rate data, gives an indication of potential oversupply in locations. The majority of the top ten potential growth cities identified have a lower retail floor space per capita than the sample average, with Sheffield and Bristol in the strongest position.
Leeds ranked sixth in the office sector with Sheffield taking the eighth position for growth cities. Manchester, Bristol and Birmingham placed as the top three growth cities in this sector.
Alex Hailey, senior director in CBRE’s Office Agency team in Leeds, said: “It’s great to see both Leeds and Sheffield identified in the top 10 growth cities. The role of the office has changed over time to align with occupier requirements, as the way we use offices evolves. The movement from cellular offices to flexible and agile formats has reduced the average space requirements per employee and hybrid working is challenging historic working norms.
“Occupiers focusing on talent attraction and retention are considering a range of flexible, amenity-rich spaces to curate the optimum user experience. But in tandem with these trends, demand for office space ultimately continues to be driven by the wider economic environment. Economic and demographic factors are fundamental when identifying key growth markets for office real estate.
“The size of the talent pool is a key factor used in forecasting office demand, with growth in those of working age and populations with qualifications at or above Level 4, could indicate the potential for employment growth by office-based sectors,” continued Hailey.
Supply factors are also key when considering a market’s ability to support future demand. In the flight to quality office space, CBRE expects pre-letting of development space to continue. 29% of space under construction is already pre-let or under offer in eight of the top ten markets where CBRE tracks pipeline data.
Sheffield placed third behind Manchester and Bristol in the urban logistics sector with Leeds ranked ninth.
As supply chains diversify to keep up with accelerated online retail activity and consumer expectations, increased demand is being placed on smaller prime urban logistics facilities located in the UK’s major metropolitan areas. These provide more agile warehouses, accommodate numerous delivery vehicles, increase cost efficiencies and shorten delivery times for end consumers.
Online shopping is a major driver in the demand for urban logistics space and the report has identified locations with a high online penetration percentage, access to high-speed internet and a forecasted growth in population of age groups with a high online spend propensity. Sheffield, Manchester and Bristol ranked highly in the growth of 34-49 year olds at 13.52%, 10.63% and 9.86% respectively.
Sheffield also ranked fifth in the Single Family Housing sector with Manchester, Birmingham and Bristol taking the top spots. Sheffield has the most affordable rental market for houses in CBRE’s top five – the average rent for a house accounts for 37% of a single local income.
Jennet Siebrits, UK head of Research at CBRE, said: “Leeds, which has one of the most diverse economies in the UK, ranked particularly well in the office and retail sectors and Sheffield was ranked among the highest cities respectively for projected growth in the urban logistics sector, which has undergone a period of supply chain diversification to keep up with accelerated online retail activity and consumer expectations since the pandemic.
“The way towns and cities evolve is very much reflective of their local geographies, natural resources and cultural history. As a result, no two UK cities are the same and subsequently, different real estate sectors thrive in different locations. Real estate professionals need to be mindful of these differences to help inform their future strategies.”
Snaith-based Croda starts work on manufacturing plant in America
Snaith headquartered Croda has broken ground on its newest manufacturing facility in Lamar, Pennsylvania.
The company is investing in the new 23,680 square-foot facility to make ingredients for drug delivery systems used in therapeutic drugs such as mRNA vaccines and gene editing therapies. The facility will support the production of lipids already used in therapeutics and vaccines, such as the COVID-19 vaccine, as well as supporting next generation therapeutics currently being developed, including lipids used for cutting-edge cancer treatments.
As the U.S. looks to expand domestic manufacturing of critical vaccines and therapeutics, Croda’s new Lamar facility, a cooperative project between the federal government and Croda, will play an important role in supporting future medicine discovery.
Bradley Cook, Vice President of Coda’s North American Operations, said:“There are rare moments that a team can contribute to such a significant betterment of humankind. The on-going collaboration with the Department of Health and Human Services and its premier biomedical countermeasure development agency, BARDA, has afforded Croda and this team the opportunity and we are extremely excited and proud.”
Construction will begin this year with the new capacity anticipated by 2025. This facility, part of an 80-acre multipurpose cGMP site, was purchased by the company in 2021, will bring up to 50 new jobs to Pennsylvania which will include engineering, administration, maintenance, operations and logistics roles. From inception, the vision of this site is to fully contribute to Croda’s sustainability goals.
Beverage systems company sold to Swedish group
Stanwell Group Ltd has been sold to a leading Swedish-based group operating in niche technology markets, with KBS Corporate advising on the sale.
Holmfirth-based Stanwell offers innovative solutions to the beverage industry, including fluid dispense pumps, valves and complete systems.
The company has grown significantly since being founded in 1990 and now offers a turnkey manufacture, supply and refurbishment service.
KBS was instructed by the sellers to facilitate their eventual retirement plans. The shareholders will retain active roles in the business for the immediate future.
Fabio Rambelli, KBS Corporate associate director who oversaw the sale, said: “I recall my first meetings with Doug, Joanne and Jonathan from Stanwell and being very impressed with the business, the products and the innovation.
“I could see how much the sellers cared about securing a buyer that would ensure the future success of Stanwell, to take great care of its staff and client base while maintaining the strong legacy of the brand.”
Teqnion was the successful buyer, having been active in the M&A space for a number of years across the UK, Ireland and mainland Europe.
The industrial group operates through multiple independent subsidiaries, acquiring scalable companies which can succeed in narrow technology niches.
Teqnion is listed on Nasdaq Stockholm and will continue to develop its decentralised subsidiary management philosophy.
Doug Gorton, sales and technical director of Stanwell, said: “Teqnion shares the belief that the key to building a successful company is through the strength of its people and the enduring relationships they build and maintain.
“Teqnion is exactly what we were looking for and Fabio was excellent throughout the process – a pleasure to work with.”
Teqnion CEO Johan Steene is excited about the future of Stanwell under new leadership and the opportunities the business offers.
“Since we love companies that supply products with long-term relevance, Stanwell is definitely for us,” he said.
“The company’s customer relationships are solid and the enduring demand for its products is likely to persist through economic fluctuations.”
Fabio Rambelli added: “It has been an absolute joy to work with Doug, Joanne and Jonathan from Stanwell, as well as Johan and Daniel (Zhang) from Teqnion.
“I have no doubt Stanwell will have a bright and prosperous future under the Teqnion leadership and I wish all parties the very best of luck in their future endeavours.”
