REGIONAL REPORT:

UK Project Management Round Up

By Miles Shepherd
Regional Editor - UK

Salisbury, England

Introduction

Most of the reports over the last year have been quietly depressing, warning of major concerns of the UK economy: and as the year draws to an end, the events in the Eurozone have been of great concern to the man in the street as well as Captains of Industry.  So there are clearly major worries over the economy in UK, Europe and the rest of the Western world.  How this will affect the many major projects scheduled to start in the New Year remains to be seen but it is difficult to see how project and programme business cases can escape major review.  Nonetheless, there is a significant range of projects due to move ahead in 2012.

London Olympics

Much of the main programme has been completed now that the key venues have been constructed.  Over the last few months, most of the sports have held test events, in the form of world championships or representative one off competitions; all seem to have passed muster.  The next phase is setting up the large numbers of volunteers who will help run the infrastructure – a pretty big task and one that is critical to the visitor experience.

Nuclear Projects

The economic downturn did not prevent the Government announce its preferred bidder for the clean up at Dounreay.  The partnership of Babcock, CH2M Hill and URS are reported to have paid up to £150 million a year for the contract which is expected to run for at least 20 years.  The decommissioning is expected to be completed in 2032.  The consortium has a strong British element to it as CH2M Hill recently acquired the engineering firm Halcrow for a reported £230 million in September while Utah based URS acquired Scott Wilson in July for £223 million, beating their only rivals – CH2M Hill who could only come up with a bid valued at £189 million.  Interestingly, the Government announced in December it would accept liability for waste from new reactors much earlier than planned.  According to Greenpeace, this amounts to a subsidy for new nuclear. 

Rail Projects

Two main infrastructure projects have been in the headlines in 2011: Crossrail and High Speed 2.  Crossrail is Europe’s largest construction project and recently unveiled the first of 8 new tunneling machines.  The 140 metre long, fully assembled tunnel boring machine (TBM) is currently undergoing factory testing. The machine will shortly be dismantled and shipped to London where it will be re-assembled at Westbourne Park ahead of tunneling commencing from Royal Oak in March. 

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