New road upgrade will help to build knowledge of Gloucestershire’s history
Image courtesy of Cotswold Archaeology Virtual Museum.
Archaeological investigations ahead of construction of a new road in Gloucestershire are set to help reveal the changing landscape and the lives of local inhabitants over more than 7,000 years.
Oxford Cotswold Archaeology have been working closely with contractors, Kier as part of National Highways’ A417 Missing Link upgrade, a scheme which will improve a three-mile stretch of singlelane carriageway on the A417 between the Brockworth bypass and Cowley roundabout in Gloucestershire.
Ahead of construction getting underway, the archaeological team will chart the history around the old route, and the communities who lived and worked alongside it.
They will excavate 33 hectares around the scheme, and it is hoped the team could find archaeology dating back to the Bronze Age, Iron Age, and Roman period.
Already during trial trenching, a Roman Cupid figurine and brooch have been uncovered, along with a Roman or early Saxon skeleton.
Gearing up for GEO Business and Digital Construction Week
GEO Business and Digital Construction Week (DCW) – taking place at ExCeL London on 17-18 May, have revealed their programmes. The CPD-accredited programmes are designed to keep visitors at the cutting-edge of innovation of geospatial technology and the built environment.
The GEO Business show features six theatres that focus on some of the key applications of geospatial, including infrastructure, transport, utilities and energy, land and natural resource management, and the built environment, while at DCW there are 10 theatres that focus on key areas shaping digital construction, including information management, asset management, geospatial, net-zero, and digital transformation.
Highlights include speakers from 1Spatial, Arup, Atkins, Hexagon, Jacobs, Ordnance Survey, Geospatial Commission, and Topcon at GEO Business, and speakers from Bryden Wood, Skanska, Laing O’Rourke, Bentley Systems, Restoration & Renewal (HoP), and AECOM at DCW. Browse the full programmes at www.geobusinessshow.com/programme and at www.digitalconstructionweek.com/programme.
For tickets, visit https://bit.ly/3NgYR6m and https://bit.ly/3V8UcFD.
Hexagon releases first Autonomous construction tech outlook
A new study has shown construction firms are embracing autonomous tech at unprecedented rates, however, there it also shows there is a disconnect between their application of the technology and the operational challenges faced, presenting an opportunity for greater bottom-line impact.
Based on input from more than 1,000 senior executives at firms across North America, the UK, and Australia, Hexagon’s study shows that construction firms are turning to technology to help mitigate and manage challenges, such as operational issues, including productivity/efficiency (36%) and labour shortages (35%).
A white paper based on the results can be found via https://bit.ly/3oRyR7K
New space satellite technology testing opportunities
The European Commission and the European Space Agency are jointly offering flight ticket opportunities for European companies or organisations to co-fund the launch services to test your new satellite technologies in space.
This Flight Ticket Initiative is designed to give promising technology and service concepts the in-orbit testing needed to reach commercial maturity. The scheme would see ESA and the EU co-fund upcoming flights of European launch vehicles for small satellites in a ‘ready-to-fly’ condition.
Expressions of interest are open until 15 March 2026. The first of several application cut-off dates will close on 31 May 2023.
For more info, visit https://bit.ly/3NjRpaL
Communities in Wales to be protected through coastal defence contracts valued at £97m
Balfour Beatty is set to deliver two SCAPE Civil Engineering framework-awarded coastal defence schemes valued at a combined £97m on behalf of Denbighshire County Council.
The Central Rhyl Coastal Defence scheme will see Balfour Beatty replace over 600m of original sea walls and construct a new rock armour defence in Rhyl, whilst the Central Prestatyn Coastal Defence scheme will see the company create a new coastal erosion embankment spanning 1,600m along the coastline in Prestatyn. They will protect over 2,500 local homes, businesses and the tourist economy in Denbighshire from flooding and coastal erosion.
To support the targets and ambitions, Balfour Beatty will also create new habitats for several protected species by providing new scrubland for badgers and other small animals and utilising a diverse grass and wildflower seeding mix across the coastal embankment to encourage foraging birds.
The completion of the Central Rhyl Coastal Defence scheme is expected in 2025, with the Central Prestatyn Costal Defence scheme in the year following.
Image Credit: NASA/SuperBIT.
SuperBIT Sees colliding Antennae Galaxies
A view of the Antennae Galaxies, two large galaxies colliding 60 million light-years away – one of the first research images from the Super Pressure Balloon Imaging Telescope (SuperBIT) that launched on a scientific super pressure balloon 16 April 2023.
In brief:
- National Highways has teamed up with Connected Places Catapult to find innovative solutions for net-zero carbon maintenance and construction in a recently launched £1.7m competition. The winners could receive £30,000 to create a trial proposal to test their road network idea and a further £80,000 to make it a reality.
- The Turing Research and Innovation Cluster (TRIC), from The Alan Turing Institute, focusing on digital twins is set to democratise access to emerging digital twin technology by providing open and reproducible computational and social tools for digital twin development and deployment as a national service.
- The 2030 Space+Spatial Industry Growth Roadmap, launched at the Australian Space Discovery Centre in Adelaide saw FrontierSI play a key role in its development. It outlines recommendations about how Australia’s space and spatial industries can develop to better impact the nation’s well-being.
- Engineers Without Borders International has entered a strategic partnership with Bentley Systems to help support the organisation’s mission of bringing together the global Engineers Without Borders movement.
- RTE (Réseau de Transport d’Electricité ) has awarded Fugro a geotechnical investigation contract for future offshore substations at two floating wind farm sites in the Gulf of Lion in the Mediterranean Sea.
- Katy Dowding, the new Skanska CEO and president, has taken over from Gregor Craig who has retired.
- Topcon has made a strategic investment in DDK Positioning Ltd, an Aberdeen-based specialist in GNSS receivers and PPP correction services.