Build Magazine August 2015

Build Magazine 5 Landlords may need to act on the new Heat Regu- lations. Winckworth Sherwood’s Colin Hall and Niall Carey explain. Landlords managing existing buildings of any type will need to ask themselves the two following ques- tions before the end of this year: • Are any of those buildings heated, cooled or supplied with hot water from a central internal or off-site boiler or chiller? • If so, is it caught by The Heat Network (Meter- ing and Billing) Regulations 2014? If the answer to these two questions is yes, you could be what the regulations call the ‘heat supplier’ with responsibility to: • Tell the National Measurement and Regulation Office that your central system exists and to provide them with technical details so that they can build a map. • Consider putting in meters to measure the heat consumption. • Maintain meters so that they remain accurate and always in operation. • Use the meters to provide customers with detailed information on the heat bills. What buildings are caught by the new regulations? A building is probably caught by the Heat Regu- lations if it receives heat from a boiler shared with other buildings, or if the building has its own boiler which serves more than one customer. This covers a potentially very wide range of buildings including: • Residential/commercial and mixed use devel- opments • Existing blocks of flats • Flat conversions and bedsits (with a central boiler) • Leisure centres (with concession holders) • Supermarkets (with concession holders) • Shopping centres • Office buildings with more than one tenant • Some university campuses Dundee Railway Station Contract Awarded Balfour Beatty joint venture awarded £416mn London ‘Super Sewer’scheme. Balfour Beatty, the international infrastructure group, today announces that its joint venture with Morgan Sindall and BAM Nuttall has been awarded a £416mn contract to construct part of London’s new ‘super sewer’, the Thames Tideway Tunnel, for Bazalgette Tunnel Limited. The Thames Tideway Tunnel will ensure the capital’s sewerage system is fit to support its projected popu- lation for at least the next 100 years, and will tackle the issue of discharges of untreated sewage that currently enter the River Thames on a regular basis. Balfour Beatty’s three-way equal joint venture, which is known as BMB and was appointed as preferred bidder for the scheme in February 2015, will create the six kilometre ‘West’ section of the 25km Thames Tideway Tunnel. BMB’s ‘West’ section will run from Acton in West London to Wandsworth in South West London and will incorporate seven separate work sites along the route. Works will include design, construction, commissioning and maintenance for a two to five year period following construction completion. A digital construction approach utilising Building Information Modelling (BIM) will allow full testing and simulation of construction activity before works start on site for safe and efficient delivery. Project materials will be transported down the Riv- er Thames to ease road congestion, emissions and disruption throughout the duration of the project. The Thames Tideway contract builds upon Balfour Beatty’s expertise in delivering large multi- discipli- nary tunnelling contracts in sensitive areas includ- ing the Crossrail Liverpool Street and Whitechapel Station tunnels and the A3 Hindhead tunnel. Mobilisation work for the ‘West’ tunnel will begin in September this year with completion sched- uled for 2022. The Thames Tideway Tunnel project will create more than 9,000 direct and indirect jobs at the peak of construction. Leo Quinn, Balfour Beatty Group Chief Executive said: “Balfour Beatty’s expert teams have for many years helped to make the London landscape – both visible and invisible – what it is today, ensuring it can to continue to grow as one of the world’s leading capital cities. The award of this unique infrastructure project, which is part of the largest ever undertaken by the UK water industry, is another example of the part we are playing in 21st Century engineering. “At the same time, together with our joint venture partners, we are committed to delivering tangible benefits for our local communities and their econ- omy - through sensitive construction, engaging local businesses and SMEs into our supply chain and providing local job opportunities, including 50 new apprenticeships.” Are meters needed in all buildings? New buildings must have them installed from the start. For existing buildings, there is time to consider whether it is feasible to install them. There are vari- ous rules and exceptions, but if the building is caught, meters must be installed by 31 December 2016. Feasibility depends on two questions – would meters be cost effective, and are they technically feasible? These depend on the use of the building and its fabric. Once installed, meters must be kept accurate and bills fully loaded with the information they record. If meters are not feasible, landlords will have to consider whether ‘heat cost allocators’ would be a feasible alternative. Who is responsible? The ‘heat supplier’ must perform these new duties – that is the person who sells the heat (or cooling) to a ‘final customer’, or the person who actually consumes the heat. So what action should you take? The starting point is to look at the heat supply contracts to decide if you are the heat supplier. On large developments the management company may fulfil that role, unless they have outsourced it all to an energy services company. In a smaller entity the landlord may have the role, in which case they need to make sure they know who is performing the duties. Enforcement of the new duties is by an escalating regime that includes a formal compliance notice, possible compensation to tenants, civil penalties and criminal sanctions as well as publication of offenders’ names. Colin Hall is a partner and Niall Carey a senior associate in the Community Infrastructure team at Winckworth Sherwood. Winckworth Sherwood has prepared a more detailed briefing on the new Heat Regulations that can be found at www.wslaw.co.uk Will Heat Regulations Leave Landlords Hot Under the Collar?