Barry McNicholas is leaving Kier at the end of this year.

McNicholas is Group Managing Director Utilities at Kier who bought his family firm McNicholas Construction for £24m in 2017.

He has decided to leave Kier at the end of Decemberto to pursue non-executive opportunities.

Andrew Davies, Kier Group CEO said: “I would like to thank Barry for his hard work over the past few years.

“Since Kier acquired McNicholas in 2017, Barry has been an integral part of our leadership team, and I wish him every success in the future.

“I am pleased to announce that Andrew Bradshaw, currently Commercial Director, Kier Highways, has been promoted to the role of Managing Director Utilities with effect from 1st December 2021”.

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Mike Darlington has decided to step down from his role as Managing Director of NG Bailey’s Engineering division after 41 years at the firm.

An internal announcement seen by the Enquirer confirms that Darlington will leave the business next April.

He joined NG Bailey in 1980 as an apprentice electrician and worked his way through the ranks being appointed engineering MD in 2013.

Darlington said: “I would like to express my sincere gratitude to NG Bailey for giving me the opportunity to have the most enjoyable and rewarding career.

“I consider myself very fortunate to have served a family-owned business that rightly puts its values and people at the heart of its mission.”

Darlington will be replaced by Group Commercial Director John Kelly from January 1.

Kelly joined NG Bailey in April from Imtech and has previously worked for Laing O’Rourke and Carillion.

He said: “I am delighted to be taking on this new role and excited by the excellent opportunities the business has ahead of it and to be working with the talented engineering teams.”

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Developers HUB and Smedvig have picked JJ Rhatigan as the main contractor to deliver the first phase of The Landing large rental flats project in Maidenhead.

Funded by the build-to-rent operator Get Living for £155m, JJR has just started construction on the cleared site, with a first phase completion date expected in Winter 2024.

The 3.5-acre mixed-use scheme is set to revitalise Maidenhead town centre, giving a much-needed boost to this key commuter hub.

Apartment blocks will rise to 16 floors in first phase of the town centre scheme

The first phase of four of the six blocks will deliver 429 homes alongside 23,000 sq ft of ground floor retail space and extensive new public realm.

It is HUB’s second partnership with the Irish contractor, which is currently on-site completing a £53m mixed-residential scheme in Abbey Wood, Greenwich, and marks JJR’s further expansion into the UK residential sector.

“This is our biggest contract so far in the UK,” said Ger Ronayne, chief executive officer of JJR. “It significantly builds on our continuing success in the UK market as the business expands and meets the market challenges head on, to deliver exciting projects across both England and Ireland.”

Designed by award-winning architect Studio Egret West, the mixed-use development, known as The Landing, will also deliver 104,000 sq ft of office space and another 15,000 sq ft of ground floor retail and leisure space in two further phases.

A new garden square including soft landscaping, trees and seating areas will create a green destination in the heart of the town.

The Landing site – a key part of Maidenhead’s wider regeneration that includes the £500m redevelopment of the town’s shopping centre – is also adjacent to Maidenhead station, where Elizabeth Line trains will arrive in 2022, and will provide a much-needed link between the refurbished station and the town centre.

Damien Sharkey, Managing Director at HUB, said: “We are very excited to now start construction on this fantastic new place that will bring beautifully designed, well-connected homes, employment opportunities and community facilities to the town centre. We are happy to be working alongside JJR for the second time, with their reputation in the industry for construction excellence.”

Established in 1952, JJR is a Tier One Main Contractor operating throughout Ireland and since 2012 in the UK, focusing on Greater London and the South East.

Ger Ronayne, CEO of JJR, said: “We look forward to working with them over the next couple of years to bring phase one of The Landing to completion.”

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Tech giant Amazon is lining-up contractors for three new massive data centres – one of which is set to be used to host classified material for the UK spy agencies.

The Financial Times has reported that GCHQ, MI5 and MI6 have struck a deal with Amazon’s cloud computing arm AWS to host classified material in one of the centres.

And the Enquirer understands that McLaren Construction is set to build the snooping centre.

A number of contractors have been in the running but one said: “It’s been a good contest but it looks like McLaren has won the race.

“I think they have bagged the James Bond building and another purely Amazon data centre. The winning contractor for the third project is still up in the air at the moment.”

In true secret service style McLaren declined to comment.

The job would be another 007 related win for the contractor which has also bagged Aston Martin’s new £200m F1 factory project next to the Silverstone Grand Prix circuit.

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Barhale has been selected by Thames Water to deliver a £10m power resilience scheme in East London.

Work will start early next year on the the project in East Ham which will provide an extensive overhaul of the Folkestone Road Pumping Station – one of four strategic pumping stations that reinforce flows along the Northern Outfall Sewer which feeds into Beckton Sewage Treatment Works.

The Barhale team will initially carry out investigations to understand the control philosophy, “storm conditions” behaviour and telemetry at the pumping station as part of a detailed design phase.

Main works will replace the pumping station’s transformers, generators, storm pumps and EICA integration with new Motor Control Centres.

Barhale design and engineering manager Ben Connis said: “Folkestone Road is a vital part of the infrastructure supporting Beckton Sewage Treatment Works – one of the largest sewage facilities in Europe.

“Beckton is basically serving most of North and East London so each of the four supporting pumping stations performs a critical role.

“We are going first into a ECI phase which will give us the opportunity to engineer out some of the operating issues and to ensure that the replacement strategy will make the most of better equipment with modern control systems – ultimately delivering a significantly more robust and resilient system for residents of the capital.

“Having already been involved in the upgrade works at Beckton Sewage Treatment Works, mainly in preparation to accept the flows from the Thames Tideway Tunnel, it’s a real feather in our caps to also be selected by Thames Water to upgrade the infrastructure leading to the treatment works.”

The principal works are expected to take around 18 months with completion in October 2023.

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