London is the home to many important and beautiful structures. With so many busy London residents and tourists around the city, it is safe to say that London’s buildings and structures are well used and appreciated.
One thing to be grateful for is our builders, contractors, and construction companies. The following article will show you the top 10 construction projects and developments to watch out for in 2017.
Houses of Parliament
The restoration of the Houses of Parliament will be one of the biggest developments in construction in London this year. The buildings will be renewed and restored this year and is said to have an estimated cost of around four billion pounds sterling.
There is currently a debate going on with the House of Commons and the House of Lords for the recommendation that in order for the R&R programme to take place, the MPs in the Houses of Parliament will have to move into a new building so the works can be carried out on the buildings.
A recent report made by Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu Limited (a UK private company with multinational professional services in accounting and professional networking) stated that it would be better for the MPs to go with a ‘full decant’ option for the R&R programme so they can keep on working whilst the development is in action.
The debate is most likely to be discussed in 2017. The general consensus amongst followers of the Houses of Parliament R&R programme development is that they will end up agreeing with the report to choose the ‘full decant’ option. Although, as with anything, there will always be some members of parliament that will disagree with this and put up a fight.
As of now, the preparation work is going to continue to progress in the meantime of the MPs and peers deciding on an option to choose whilst work is being carried out on the building. There are two multi million pound R&R properties to be awarded very soon as well as further work to be done within the Northern Estates Programme.
Northern Line
The Northern Line Extension has been planned and anticipated to go under way since 2014. Around six hundred million British pounds sterling was awarded to A Ferrovial and Laing O’Rourke JV for the works towards the Northern Line extension project in development.
It has been three years and recently there has been a lot of concern. Although the projects has been planned and well under way since A Ferrovial / Laing O’Rourke in 2014, there has been a lot of dispute over rising costs and delays.
In May 2017, Transport for London stated that the Northern Line extension costs could rise by about two hundred and forty million pounds sterling due to redesigns. In July 2017, there were other independent reports stating that the project is remained at ‘high risk of delay’.
In 2017, the tunnelling required for the project is expected to be completed. There has also been some scepticism with TFL’s finances because of Sadiq Khan’s fares freeze that was predicted by his critics. It will end up opening a hole in Transport for London’s finances and will thus create a knock on effect for future Transport for London projects to come (for example the Bakerloo Line extension that is still awaiting decisions for when it will start and where it will go). Everyone’s eyes will be focused on whether or not the project’s target will be met.
Euston Station
Euston Station’s redevelopment is meant to be complete by before the end of the year however it has continued to be the subject of enormous political and public scrutiny.
The future of Euston Station is highly important because of the amount of use it has to residents and tourists all across London. The London underground tube station, served by the Victoria Line and both sides of the Northern Line, whilst still being connected to the main line overground train station above it, has plans worth more than billions of pounds and needs to have room for future projects such as High Speed 2 and Crossrail 2. It also needs some room for keeping around sixty thousand commuters happy every single day.
The mayor of London, Sadiq Khan, has already made the call for High Speed 2 to be terminated until further notice at the Old Oak Common interchange because of the financing problems; however the bosses in charge of the High Speed 2 project have already rejected the suggestion.
High Speed 2 was being anticipated by the public and bosses to be a way to attract the presenting of new proposals for the approach in regards to Euston Station to the Department of Transport in February. The project hopes to get royal assent in the time after.
Google HQ
Google, the search engine giant, is looking forward to the construction of their brand new headquarters to set in motion as soon as possible. This was said after the chief executive of Google announced publically that he was committed to the scheme in November of 2016.
There are many people responsible in the construction of the new Google office in London. These include the four contractors Lendlease, Mace, Multiplex and Sir Robert McAlpine, who are all taking their part in creating the new HQ.
In 2013, Google made the decision to redesign the building development and structure, which was meant to be built by Bam, that was a proposal originally ordered to be set for three hundred million British pounds. Following this, in present day, Google will be proceeding with more caution.
In 2017, the scheme is way more different than originally planned, but it is still moving along. The construction value has increased to around six hundred million.
Construction Blog 2017 