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Construction orders in the U.K. remained unchanged in three months to December from the previous three months, a report released by the Office for National Statistics showed on Thursday. Orders in the twelve months to December dropped 13% compared with the previous twelve months. But construction orders rose 5% on a yearly basis during three months ended December.

During three months to December, private housing orders surged 41% from the prior three months, while public housing and housing association orders fell 19%. Infrastructure orders decreased in December by 13% and public non-housing orders were down 15%. Meanwhile, private commercial orders grew 18%.

The £120m redevelopment of Elisabeth House in Manchester city centre has received planning consent.

The scheme, by Argent and the Greater Manchester Property Venture Fund, involves the demolition of an existing 110,000ft2 sixties building and replacing it with a 270,000ft2 mixed-use retail and leisure development – One St Peter’s Square – designed by Glenn Howells Architects.

Construction work will not start until part of the building is pre-let. Completion is not expected before 2014.

The scheme is part of a wider revamp of St Peter’s Square.

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CAD Pioneer Graebert GmbH Announces ARES, The First Native CAD Solution For All 3 Major Operating Systems & Mobile

Based on 5 Years of Development, ARES Combines Exceptional Performance with AutoCAD Compatibility, Easy-to-Navigate UI, Full Customization and Native Availability on Windows, Mac & Linux for below $500

Graebert™ GmbH (Berlin) – one of the pioneering companies in high-performance CAD solutions for desktop and mobile devices – today announced ARES™, the industry’s first native cross-platform CAD solution.  ARES provides both industry compatibility and the highest-performance features and capabilities for mission-critical design workflow.  Details may be found at Mobile CAD Surveying Ltd

ARES uses a common design interface and is the first CAD solution to run natively across Microsoft® Windows®, Apple® Mac® OS X and Linux®, while also being optimized for specific operating system features and capabilities.   ARES also includes innovative and powerful features such as built-in VoiceNotes for created files, 3D modeling support via the latest ACIS libraries and more.

Upcoming versions of ARES will be available for Microsoft Windows Mobile® devices – both Apple iPad® and the Google® Android® operating system are under active evaluation for porting as well.  ARES will be initially available in 13 languages from the entire worldwide network of Graebert distributors and partners, as well as select OEMs.

ARES development has focused on a number of core benchmarks, with performance being a leading criterion: ARES is typically 3-5X faster in operations such as open and save than other CAD packages on any platform.  With more than a year of intensive beta testing by more than 100 major corporations and leading CAD users, ARES is the end-result of more than 250 man-years of development (5 calendar years) from Graebert, one of the pioneers in CAD software development since 1983.

Graebert is well known internationally for leading mobile CAD solutions such as SiteMaster™ as well as having more than 500,000 estimated users of PowerCAD™, its previous-generation CAD product.  The company has more than 50 active VARs and OEMs on six continents, and is working with these and new partners to distribute ARES worldwide.

“Several Fortune® 500 companies have been using ARES as part of our intensive beta test – to them, ARES really does represent the next-generation of CAD solution,” said Wilfried Graebert, Founder and CEO of Graebert, GmbH.  “Using ARES, they have been able to create designs in far less time than with competitive solutions – the feedback has been identical – ARES is an impressive product that lived up to their demanding expectations.”

Key features of ARES include:

• DWG native format – Graebert is a founding member of the Open Design Alliance and sits on the Board of Directors.  ARES supports DWG Import (2.x -> 2009), Export (12->2009) and DWG 2009 Native format (DWG 2010 support coming in 2nd Quarter, 2010)

• AutoCAD-compatible command line and scripts

• More than 400 new commands

• Drawing recovery

• Latest ACIS 3D modeling support

• I/O Support for DWG 2.5 -> 2009, DWF, SAT, WMF, SLD, ESRI & SHP

• Exceptional print capabilities, including PDF, Raster & SVG

• UI optimized for each native operating system as well as an XML-based, fully customizable UI with a built-in designer

• Widest range of programming I/O support, including Lisp, C, Delphi, COM, .net (C#, VB.net), C++ and VSTA

Pricing and availability:

ARES will ship in two different price configurations – ARES ($495) and ARES Commander Edition ($995).  The two products are identical with the exception of programmability and 3D support, which are found only in ARES Commander Edition.  Both ARES and ARES Commander Edition for Microsoft Windows are available immediately as trial downloads from www.graebert.com – the Mac and Linux versions are currently part of a closed Beta process (request an invite at www.graebert.com) and are expected to ship in the 2nd quarter of 2010.

About Graebert:

Paralleling the rise of the personal computer, Graebert GmbH (Berlin) has more than 30 years expertise in delivering high-performance, affordable solutions for both the PC and mobile CAD markets.  Graebert’s award-winning products are fully compliant with industry standards and have been mission-critical for customers ranging from the largest Fortune® 500 companies to individual architects.

In 1999, Graebert GmbH recognized the need for professional CAD in the growing market of mobile devices and developed PowerCAD CE, the first professional and fully functional 2D and 3D CAD System for Windows CE™. The company’s award-winning SiteMaster™ solution has measured thousands of public and private facilities throughout Europe, Asia and North America.

For more information please contact Mobile CAD Surveying Ltd +44 (0) 844 567 2609 the leading provider of Mobile CAD Solutions in the UK.

The figures will offer some relief to the UK’s recession-battered tradesmen, who have been among the worst affected by the economic downturn.

The CIPS/Markit construction Purchasing Managers Index (PMI) climbed to 48.6 last month – an improvement on the 47 expected by economists and only marginally short of the threshold that indicates positive growth.

It was thought that winter’s freezing weather may have slowed progress over December and January, raising concerns that growth would be stifled during the first month of what will be a tough year for the sector.

Howard Archer, chief UK economist at IHS Global Insight, said: ‘It is actually welcome news that the contraction in activity was not deeper in January given the adverse weather conditions.’

New orders were down for the second month following a slight increase in November, while unemployment fell again, albeit at its slowest rate since August 2008.

Archer added: ‘The overall impression is that the construction sector is stabilising after enduring a major recession, and it will be desperately hoping that the economy can generate significant recovery after crawling out of recession in the fourth quarter of 2009.’

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Introducing the all new Horizon Xtend & Climb Home – arguably the most compact ladder on the market!

It stores at a mere 0.68m and opens up to an amazing 2.59m – meaning you can store it in the most confined spaces such as under the stairs, under the bed or between the fridge and the washing machine and still be able to access lofts, windows and high wardrobes.

Introducing the all new Horizon Xtend & Climb Home – arguably the most compact ladder on the market!

It stores at a mere 0.68m and opens up to an amazing 2.59m – meaning you can store it in the most confined spaces such as under the stairs, under the bed or between the fridge and the washing machine and still be able to access lofts, windows and high wardrobes.

Xtend & Climb Home has a new ergonomic design, making opening and closing the ladder even easier, especially for those with smaller hands.

The RIBA WCCA Travel Award has been set up in memory of Stuart Murphy, former chief planning officer for the City of London, and will provide an international travel grant of up to £2,000 to a part II student or group of students from Greater London.

The RIBA Stephen Williams Scholarship, established in memory of the former Aedas director, aims to support exceptional students at part II or masters level with a £5,000 award and mentorship from Aedas.

The deadline for application for both awards is March 26.

Additionally, the RIBA has also announced the recipient of the 2010 RIBA HSE Research Fund, which provides funding for research into the teaching of health and safety in architecture schools.

A team from Sheffield University, including Daniel Jary, Leo Care, Howard Evans and Rosie Parnell, have been awarded £10,000 for their project.

John-Paul Nunes, head of education projects at the RIBA said: “The RIBA is firmly committed to the promotion of excellence in architectural education, and helping talented students achieve the best of their ability. We would like to thank our very generous partners in helping us to achieve this goal.”

Contractors are facing exclusion from local authority tender lists, as scrutiny intensifies in the wake of the Office of Fair Trading probe into bid rigging.

It has emerged that news that two large councils have questioned firms about their involvement in the probe. At the same time, lawyers claim many others are looking to redraft tender documents to include questions that will weed out implicated contractors.

This week, North Yorkshire became the latest council to reveal it was examining firms’ involvement in the inquiry and has written to all 103 named to ask if they have been involved in anti-competitive activities.

A council spokesperson said it would not automatically exclude those on the list, but that they would be “closely monitored”.

Meanwhile, Leeds council has stepped up its investigation into 32 firms that it uses. It has written to them seeking details of their involvement in bid rigging and said it may exclude firms from future work, including the £1.2bn Yorbuild framework, after assessing individual cases.

The council would not reveal which firms it had written to, but the Office of Fair Trading (OFT) alleged Carillion, Strata, Caddick, Richardson Projects, P Casey and Henry Boot had engaged in cover pricing on projects in Leeds.

Meanwhile, several lawyers have noted a rise in the number of local authorities and public sector clients enquiring about firms involved in the probe and warned that several could already be blacklisted by councils. One lawyer said: “We’re definitely seeing an increased level of awareness from public clients.”

The news comes in the week contractors won an early courtroom battle with the OFT, after a judge ruled on Monday that it would have to pursue cases on an individual basis rather than in batches.

Tristan Meears-White, a partner at Watson Burton, said: “The ruling could save contractors tens of thousands of pounds. Firms might have been required to turn up to several different hearings otherwise.”

The boss of one major contractor described this week’s decision as “very encouraging”. Another boss said: “This decision doesn’t suit the OFT at all because of the resource issue. It’s not exactly a major win for the contractors, but it’s undoubtedly a headache for the OFT.”