Welcome to the Friday Feed, our rundown of this week’s construction news
🚉 Rail
In this week’s rail news, AtkinsRéalis lands £98m rail upgrade deal , which will upgrade 43 km of railway around Portsmouth, improving performance and capacity on the Wessex Route between London, Portsmouth, and Southampton. Elsewhere, HS2’s chief executive Mark Wild’s review of the project has been delayed until summer to allow more time to explore cost savings on the £43.6bn scheme. Transport secretary Heidi Alexander highlighted that reducing the planned 360kph top speed could cut costs and avoid delays, as no current railway is built for such speeds.
🛫Ports and Aviation
The UK Government has provided a £746m guarantee to support the refurbishment of two of Nigeria’s busiest ports, in a deal that underlines renewed trade and infrastructure cooperation between London and Abuja, and routes hundreds of millions of pounds of work to UK suppliers. In addition, the UK airports sector catching up to global recovery, after profoundly hit by the pandemic. With flight cancellations and slow recovery delaying investment. Despite initial concerns that remote work might reduce long term demand, passenger numbers have now rebounded above pre pandemic levels. As a result, airports are resuming major expansion projects including new runways at Heathrow and Gatwick and upgrades at Luton and Stansted driven by renewed investor confidence and the sector’s full recovery, according to Tim Walder.
⚡Energy
The Department for Energy Security and Net Zero has set out plans to expand the UK’s electricity interconnectors undersea cables ,linking Britain’s grid with neighbouring countries to import and export power. The first link, Interconnexion France Angleterre, opened in 1986, and there are now nine more connections providing 10.3GW of capacity across Europe and Ireland, with a further 1.4GW link to Germany currently under construction. The UK Government will prioritise UK suppliers in steel to strengthen national and economic security by prioritising UK suppliers in steel, shipbuilding, AI and energy, while introducing stricter sourcing rules, in house checks for contracts over £1m, and social value requirements for those above £5m.
🚗 Roads
Wiltshire Council has appointed MJ Church to progress the M4 Junction 17 upgrade through an Early Contractor Involvement stage, helping refine costs and plans of a 2026 business case submission. The scheme aims to ease congestion by signalising the roundabout, widening approaches and bridges, and increasing capacity all within the existing highway boundary.
In addition, UK Government has confirmed its £27bn, five-year Road Investment Strategy 3, focusing on maintaining and renewing England’s motorways and A roads rather than starting new projects. A record £8.4bn is earmarked for resurfacing over 9,000 km of lanes, with major schemes including the A66 Northern Trans Pennine dualling and continued support for the Lower Thames Crossing. The programme also covers structural and reconstruction work on roads and bridges across the network.
🏠Property and development
Bouygues gets go-ahead for a three tower, 1,945 bed student scheme behind Tate Modern, with public spaces and retail. Backed by Southwark Council and Equitix, it is set to start in 2027 and meet high environmental standards. Sisk has begun a £42m redevelopment of Edgbaston stadium, replacing the Raglan and Priory Stands with a new 3,200 seat stand and adding a Radisson RED hotel with hospitality and pitch facing rooms. The project, part of The Edgbaston Masterplan, is expected to finish in time for the Men’s Ashes in summer 2027.
💧Water
A proposed tidal lagoon in Swansea Bay has moved a step closer after Swansea Council agreed a deal with developer Batri. The plan will transform the Tir John landfill into a multi-phase solar farm, starting with a 3MW scheme to power hundreds of homes, and forming the foundation for a wider renewable programme that includes the lagoon. Part of the broader Swansea Project led by DST Innovations, the privately funded scheme also includes plans for a data centre, battery plant and energy hub. Backers say the lagoon could deliver predictable clean power, jobs and tourism; reviving proposals first approved in 2015 but later dropped over funding concerns.
Per and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS), or, ‘forever chemicals’ are now a major concern for UK infrastructure, affecting water, construction, waste, and environmental projects. Once valued for their industrial and consumer uses, they are persistent in the environment and linked to health risks like cancer and thyroid disease. With the UK Government’s new PFAS Plan increasing testing and requiring remediation where found, the chemicals have moved from an emerging contaminant to an urgent priority for engineers and construction professionals.
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