Hansom: Ah, the memories

Thanks for the support (not)

Rowecord, the Welsh steel specialist that went into administration last week, famously built the sweeping roof of Zaha Hadid’s London Olympics acquatics centre. But did an inability to promote its Olympic pedigree contribute to the firm going under? Building has learned that Rowecord - which, in common with many firms, had for many months been unable to shout about its London 2012 work - applied for one of the new Olympic marketing licences in mid-February and had still not been granted one at the time it collapsed. A spokesperson for the British Olympic Association said that Rowecord had not completed the application process, which involves several stages and relies on the co-operation of third parties. “The key item we are awaiting in order to complete the application is a reference letter from the Tier One sponsor with which they worked during the Games,” the spokesperson said.

Now for the good news …

There seems to have been a remarkable flurry in activity at Balfour Beatty’s press office over the past week, with a regular stream of small contract wins arriving in Building’s mailbox, including a park-and-ride job in York as well as an admittedly heart-warming tale about Balfour employees helping pupils in Manchester give their school a green makeover. What is going on at the mouthpiece of the UK’s biggest contractor, for whom announcements are more commonly confined to hundred million pound plus schemes? Surely all the positive news bites have nothing at all to do with the firm’s £50m profit warning last week …

History lesson

Building’s celebration of its 170th anniversary this year has made Hansom reflect on how little things change. Our feature last week on tower blocks of 1963 showed a photograph of graffiti daubed on the base of the newly completed Centre Point tower which could have been written today. “Homes not offices”, it read. A less polite scrawl is visible today close to Building HQ, on the site of a former boozer that has been knocked down to make way for one of this era’s newest developments. “Knocked down a lovely pub to build another glasshouse …” it states, adding the Luddite sentiment: “Fuck all modern day shit”. Clearly vocabulary, if not architecture, has deteriorated over the last half century.

What the papers say

Street lights, waste collection and other council services are not usually of interest to the media, but the recent battle between Kier and Costain for services firm May Gurney certainly thrust the sector into unfamiliar focus. Unfortunately the Times and the Financial Times conspired to spell Kier as Keir in their headlines, with the latter managing to alternate between correct and incorrect versions throughout its article. One imagines the bosses at Kier, in their moment of triumph, were not terribly amused.

Taking the scenic route?

There’s a lot in the press about the comeback of the railways, but if Aecom has its way, that won’t be the only infrastructure form to attempt a resurgence. Reports have indicated that the consultant’s proposal for a £14bn “mega canal” linking Scotland to London have met with a keen response from the energy department’s chief scientific adviser David McKay (although DECC officially says it is something he is not involved with). What next, a return to horse-drawn carts? I can personally recommend the Hansom cab …