The first development sites for the firm in London are an 80-flat development site at Beam Park in Dagenham and a 77-flat development site at Fresh Wharf, a major riverside scheme close to Barking town centre.

Sigma will work with Countryside Properties and L&Q New Homes at the Beam Park scheme and with Countryside Properties and Notting Hill Developments at Fresh Wharf.

The combined development cost of the two sites is £44m.

Fresh Wharf is expected to be completed towards the end of next year, with Beam Park completing by Spring 2021.

The new homes will be marketed and let under the investor’s ‘Simple Life’ letting brand.

Ian Sutcliffe, group chief executive at Countryside Properties, said :”We are delighted to be extending our very successful partnership with Sigma Capital into the London market.

“We have delivered over 4,000 private rented homes over the past five years together as part of differentiated mixed tenure approach to regeneration sites. We anticipate continuing growth from our relationship with Sigma in London and beyond.”

Sigma’s move into London follows its recent launch in Scotland, where it has entered into a collaboration agreement with house builder Springfield Properties and is targeting the delivery of hundreds of new rental homes across Scotland’s major cities, including Dundee, Edinburgh, and Glasgow.

Outside London, Sigma has delivered more than 3,000 new rental homes across the regions, through its PRS property platform.

The amount of antibiotics entering the River Thames would need to be cut by as much as 80 per cent to avoid the development and spread of antibiotic-resistant ‘superbugs’, a new study has shown.

Scientists from the Centre for Ecology & Hydrology (CEH) modelled the effects of antibiotic prescriptions on the development of antibiotic-resistant bacteria in a river. It found that across three-quarters of the River Thames catchment, the antibiotics present, due to effluent discharge, were likely to be at levels high enough for antibiotic-resistant bacteria to develop.

The study comes after England’s chief medical officer Professor Dame Sally Davies warned last week that bugs resistant to antibiotics could pose a more immediate risk to humanity than climate change, and may kill at least 10 million people a year across the world.

Dr Andrew Singer of the Centre for Ecology & Hydrology, who led the study, says: “Rivers are a ‘reservoir’ for antibiotic-resistant bacteria which can quickly spread to people via water, soil, air, food and animals. Our beaches offer a similar risk. It has been shown that surfers are four times more likely to carry drug-resistant bacteria than non-surfers.”

How antibiotics get into our rivers

Up to 90% of prescribed antibiotics taken by people pass through the body and into the sewerage system, where about half end up in rivers when effluent is discharged.

Dr Singer explains: “The release of drugs and bugs into our rivers increases the likelihood of antibiotic-resistant genes being shared, either through mutation or ‘bacterial sex’. This is the first step towards the development of superbugs as the drugs used to fight them will no longer work. Environmental pollution from drugs and bugs is a serious problem that we need to find solutions to.”

The CEH-led research was based on prescription data from clinical commissioning groups for two classes of antibiotics that biodegrade slowly. Macrolides, such as erythromycin and azithromycin, are used to treat a range of respiratory and sexually transmitted infections such as pneumonia, whooping cough and chlamydia. Fluoroquinolones such as ciprofloxacin, levofloxacin and moxifloxacin treat respiratory and urinary tract infections. 

Possible solutions

There are a number of different ways we could reduce the amount of antibiotics entering rivers, including:

• reducing inappropriate prescriptions, either because the antibiotics will not reduce the infection, or the course of treatment is longer than is medically necessary
• preventative action so fewer medicines are needed in the first place, such as more rapid diagnosis of medical conditions, greater uptake of vaccinations for illnesses and better hygiene controls in hospitals.
• increased investment in research and development of new wastewater treatment processes that would remove the drugs and bugs from sewage.

There was a 6.1 per cent reduction in total antibiotic consumption in primary and secondary care in England between 2014 and 2018. However, antibiotics prescriptions per person in the UK per person is still higher than several European countries and double that of the Netherlands, where their controls on prescribing antibiotics and effective hygiene measures in the healthcare system have resulted in relatively low rates of antibiotic resistance.

The study, which also involved Royal Holloway, University of London, and received funding from UKRI, has been published in the journal PLOS ONE.

Further information

Andrew C. Singer, Qiuying Xu, Virginie D.J. Keller. 2019. Translating antibiotic prescribing into antibiotic resistance in the environment: a hazard characterisation case study. PLOS ONE. DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0221568

July 2019 marks the 30th anniversary of the privatisation of the water and sewerage industry in England and Wales. Our new report published today reflects on the the achievements of the industry while setting out the industry’s future plans and how companies will tackle the challenges ahead.

Before privatisation in 1989 beaches were routinely spoiled by sewage and the water infrastructure was crumbling after decades of underinvestment. Pipes were increasingly leaking and wildlife was declining in polluted rivers. It gave Britain the unwanted nickname of “the dirty man of Europe”.

In the last three decades we’ve more than doubled the number of our beaches classed as ‘excellent’and by investing £25 billion in environmental work rivers have improved so much that the otter population, once nearing extinction, is now thriving. Our efforts to clean up 10,000 miles of rivers and waterways have even resulted in wildlife returning to riverss that had been biologically dead since the Industrial Revolution – we’ve even seen salmon, trout and even seals returning to urban rivers.

We’ve invested nearly £160 billion to make our water world class.  We’ve cut leakages by a third and ensured customers are five times less likely to suffer supply interruption and 100 times less likely to encounter low pressure than they would have been 30 years ago. Our record levels of investment have allowed us to keep bills at around the same price as they were 20 years ago in real terms.

We’ve worked hard to ensure that every home has access to world class water. Today, our drinking water passes 99.96% of quality tests – meaning cleaner, safer water every time you turn on your tap.

As the climate continues to change and our population increases, new challenges are emerging for our water – and our environment. So, we’re looking ahead to the immediate future with an additional £50 billion investment planned over the next five years, as well as setting ambitious commitments for 2030. We aim to improve and protect a further 5,000 miles of rivers by 2025 and reduce leakage by a staggering 461 million litres a day by 2030. We’ve also put initiatives in place to eliminate the equivalent of 4 billion wasted plastic bottles and reduce net carbon emissions for the sector to zero. We want to continue keeping costs low, ensuring a decade of real-term reduction to bills by 2025 and developing a strategy to end water poverty.

We’ve achieved a  huge amount over the last 30 years and while we know the next 30 will bring their own unique challenges, we have the expertise, organisation and intelligently planned investments to ensure cleaner, safer and better water for many years to come.

The Reverse Charge legislation for the construction sector has been slowly making its way through Parliament since 2017 and will come into force on 1 October 2019. The Reverse Charge will alter the responsibility in the construction sector for how businesses pay and report VAT on services.

The REC team has been corresponding with HMRC for some time about whether the Reverse Charge will apply to recruitment services. For our members in the construction sector this is obviously a concern. Whilst we understand from HMRC that the Reverse Charge will not apply to recruitment services, we are waiting for the official confirmation of this.

Why is it being brought in?

The remit of the Reverse Charge is to tackle what the HMRC calls ‘missing trader’ fraud. This involved businesses charging VAT for services provided and then disappearing without paying that VAT to HMRC.

How does it work?

The charge works by shifting the responsibility for the declaration and payment of VAT for services from the service supplier to the recipient of the services. It will be applied to all construction services and includes the cost of materials.

What about recruiters?

The Reverse Charge will apply to construction services and will affect businesses registered for the Construction Industry Scheme (CIS).  Many recruiters are registered for CIS but they do not provide construction services – rather, they provide recruitment services to the construction industry. 

That said, we understand that some clients have already told REC members that they will apply the VAT Reverse Charge to their invoices. 

The REC will continue to push HMRC for written confirmation that the Reverse Charge will not apply to recruitment services and we will update you when we receive this. For more information contact Chris Hartley in the Policy team via christopher.hartley@rec.uk.com.

We are also holding the Sector meeting for REC members in the construction sector on 14 May. The meeting will be held at REC HQ, and you can reserve your space here.

Having the right to work to provide for our families and be an active member of the community is something that most of us just take for granted. Yet for people who flee war and persecution and come to the UK seeking safety, they are denied that right – and forced into a life of poverty by being banned from working.

People seeking asylum in the UK are only able to apply for the right to work after they have been waiting for a decision on their asylum claim for over a year. Even then, the few people who are granted permission are rarely able to work because they’re restricted to an incredibly narrow list of jobs such as classical ballet dancer and nuclear medicine practitioner. It just doesn’t make sense.

We know that if half of the people seeking asylum were granted the right to work and earned a national average wage, £42.4 million would be recouped by the government through tax and national insurance payments and savings in financial support.  

The public is in favour of lifting the ban with 71% agreeing that people seeking asylum should have the right to work; and MPs of all parties have strongly backed the call in parliament.

A survey we conducted last year of people with direct experience of the asylum process revealed that 74% had secondary-level education or higher and over a third held an undergraduate or postgraduate university degree. It is shameful that we are letting these talents go to waste for months or even years on end.

That’s why we at Refugee Action, together with our partners at Asylum Matters, are leading a coalition of over 190 members to urge the government to Lift the Ban stopping people seeking asylum from working.

Members of the Lift The Ban coalition include the CBI, TUC and other trade unions, think tanks, faith groups and businesses like Ben and Jerry’s.

Together, we’re calling for the UK to give people seeking asylum the right to work after six months, without narrow restrictions on the type of jobs they can apply for - a move which would bring us in line with every comparable nation.   

We’re thrilled to now have REC on board to bring its expertise in the workplace to help us champion the rights of those who have so many skills to offer.  

We want to see the government move rapidly on this issue – which is why we need you to join us, add your voice and help us Lift The Ban.

Ofwat has today confirmed a package of measures to strengthen water companies’ financial resilience, by calling on them to adopt a common set of standards.

This includes strengthening requirements to maintain an investment grade credit rating and accepting restrictions on pay-outs to shareholders in certain circumstances.

The regulator has launched a consultation on the proposals which are aimed at strengthening the regulatory ring-fencing framework to bring all licences up to the industry leading standard via licence conditions which are consistent across the industry.

The proposals build on previous consultations and discussions in industry workshops, and specifically relate to:

• maintaining investment grade credit ratings and cash lock-up;
• providing ring-fencing certificates;
• reporting of material issues; and
• change of control.

The so-called cash lock-up conditions mean that if a water company is at risk of losing its investment grade rating, it is barred from making pay-outs to shareholders or removing money or assets from the business. Once the cash lock up is triggered, the firm cannot release any funds to its holding company or other associated businesses, including paying dividends, without Ofwat’s consent.

The consultation paper says:

“It is.. our view that the same standard of protection should apply consistently to every Appointee irrespective of business model, ownership structure or listing status. … We believe that a consistent and equivalent standard is most simply and transparently achieved when each company has identical licence conditions. “

According to the regulator, by proposing that companies must ensure an investment grade credit rating, greater clarity of expectations is provided to companies and a clearer decision making process for Ofwat.

The changes are intended to further safeguard customers’ interests by ensuring water companies remain financially robust and continue to attract investment.

Rachel Fletcher, Chief Executive at Ofwat said:

“Water companies must provide resilient services to their customers. To do that, they need to be financially resilient. To help secure that, we want to introduce clearer, consistent requirements and protections.

“These protections will give greater assurance to customers about all water companies’ financial stability and long-term resilience.”

Deadline to submit responses to the consultation is 8 January 2019 – click hereto access the consultation document Consultation on strengthening the regulatory ring-fencing framework

The world of work is constantly changing: new technologies, automation, changing demographics and different worker expectations and working patterns all mean that the recruitment industry needs to be constantly adapting and preparing for the future.

The REC’s Engineering and Construction sector groups met recently to form a joint infrastructure group. Over 60 members shared their thoughts and predictions for what the next five to seven years holds for the industry. 

New technologies: threat or opportunity?

Whilst for many the future is uncertain, for others, the introduction of new technologies is having an impact and is likely to accelerate in the years ahead. Drones are already being used on building sites to quickly assess land and even make cost calculations! Will this mean an end to jobs such as quantity surveyors in the years ahead, or will it open up opportunities for a different type of worker to enter the industry?

With the advent of new technologies and software impacting on the actual recruitment process itself in some sectors, members in infrastructure were very optimistic that their services would still be needed in the future. Workers and clients still want the ‘human touch’, and members felt that software would only act to supplement the services of professional recruiters by speeding up the process.

Diversity

Women are hugely under-represented in the engineering and construction sectors, something that recruiters are keen to address. But the feeling is very much that the culture of the whole industry needs to change if we are to address the imbalance. New technologies may be a route in for many women, and members were keen to explore this. But the importance of female role models - at all levels - was cited as the best way of encouraging more women into the sector.

Promoting the sector

The lack of good careers advice in schools has long been cited as a problem, all the more in construction and engineering. Members felt that the industry needs to be proactive in promoting the sector to the next generation of workers. The importance of local employers going in to schools to promote careers in local businesses is important. However, with skills shortages continuing to be an ongoing problem in the sector, many employers do not want to play the long-game - they want the workers now. Many schools are simply resorting to asking parents to come in to promote their careers. There is clearly a need for a more centrally co-ordinated approach.

Future of jobs commission

The Future of jobs commission will be looking at all aspects of the future world of work. Not only will it be providing an analysis of the landscape, and its potential impact on members, it will also be making concrete recommendations to government. If you would like to feed in to the commission’s work, please contact neal.suchak@rec.uk.com.