• During the visit, Her Majesty The Queen and His Royal Highness The Earl of Wessex, met with staff, including Elizabeth line apprentices, drivers, and station staff
• The Elizabeth line will open to customers on Tuesday 24 May, radically cutting journey times, increasing capacity and encouraging people back onto public transport
• The opening of the railway coincides with this year’s Platinum Jubilee celebrations, marking The Queen’s 70 years on the throne

HS2 confirmed that the first of two mini tunnelling machines that will be used near Great Missenden will be named ‘Lizzie’ after the name was chosen by students from the nearby The Misbourne school.

New approach will see every major element of the viaduct prefabricated before being assembled on site, cutting its carbon footprint by two-thirds and simplifying construction. Crossing the flood plain of the River Thame, just outside Aylesbury, the viaduct will carry HS2 trains at speeds of up to 360km/h between London, Birmingham and the North.

bp and EnBW Energie Baden-Württemberg AG have awarded Fugro a geotechnical site investigation contract for their new offshore wind farms, Morgan and Mona, located in the Irish Sea.

HS2’s Main Works Contractor, Skanska Costain Strabag joint venture, SCS JV, have taken a major step forward in their work at the Victoria Road Site in Acton, completing the base slab construction of the Victoria Road ancillary shaft.

Two perforated concrete hoods will cover the track, extending the 10 mile long tunnel into the open air. These ‘porous portals’ will avoid sudden changes in air pressure – and resulting noise – caused by trains entering and exiting the tunnels.

A £51.6 million upgrade of the A19 delivered to budget and ahead of programme by Costain has been officially opened to traffic.

Two enormous Tunnel Boring Machines (TBMs) excavating HS2’s longest tunnels have completed the first stage of their drive – from the Chiltern tunnel’s south portal to the first ventilation shaft at Chalfont St Peter

Balfour Beatty, the international infrastructure group, announces that Louise Hardy has been appointed as a Non-executive Director with effect from 1 April 2022.

• Designs updated from 2015 show how the major London transport hub will be transformed with the arrival of HS2
• 3,000 jobs and millions of pounds of business contract opportunities set to be unlocked by HS2 construction

Costain has been awarded funding by the Welsh Government’s Smart Living HyBRID SBRI initiative to undertake a project which looks at the feasibility of small scale hydrogen production in South Wales. HyBRID (Hydrogen Business Research & Innovation for Decarbonisation) is a Small Business Research Initiative (SBRI) funded by Welsh Government Smart Living.

• The Environmental Enhancement Plan developed by the Trent Sow Group will enhance the landscape and biodiversity around the new railway
• The plan has received £1.5m funding from HS2 Ltd to deliver six projects over two years in the Trent Sow Parklands and Cannock Chase Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty
• HS2 Ltd has worked with the National Trust, the Cannock Chase AONB Partnership and other local partners on plans

The Resilience as a Service (RaaS) project, led by Scottish and Southern Electricity Networks (SSEN) Distribution, Costain and E.ON, welcomes the positive decision to progress the development of a pilot scheme to improve energy resilience in remote and rural areas through the use of battery storage technology together with local energy resources.

A River Water Source Heat Pump has been installed at York Guildhall, as part of the refurbishment and redevelopment work. This will significantly reduce the carbon footprint of the historic building at the heart of the city.

Balfour Beatty, the international infrastructure group, announces the appointment of Gavin Russell as CEO of its Infrastructure Investments business.

Hochtief UK has been awarded a GBP 207 million (EUR 240 million) power supply tunnel project by National Grid in Wales. The project is part of the Visual Impact Provision project in the Snowdonia National Park near Porthmadog in the north of the country.

HS2 Ltd confirmed that TK Elevator has been awarded the framework to deliver around 300 state-of-the-art lifts and escalators for the four major new stations being built as part of the HS2 high speed rail project.

Balfour Beatty, in partnership with Transport for Wales, Siemens Mobility, Alun Griffiths Contractors Ltd and Amey Infrastructure Wales, announced that its Craidd Alliance has secured an international accreditation for collaboration.

Mark Thurston, CEO of HS2 Ltd, said: “It has been a year of major moments for HS2 – from the start of tunnelling, to hitting 20,000 jobs, to awarding the contract to build our trains – 2021 really showed the incredible momentum on Britain’s biggest infrastructure project. HS2 is moving forward, creating jobs, enhancing skills, benefiting UK businesses and building a low carbon, high capacity railway that will change the way we travel in Britain.”

Anglo American has conducted a detailed technical review of the Woodsmith polyhalite project in the UK since mid-2020 to ensure the technical and commercial integrity of the full scope of its design. Now largely complete, the review has confirmed the findings of Anglo American’s due diligence that a number of elements of the project’s design would benefit from modification to bring it up to Anglo American’s safety and operating integrity standards and to optimise the value of the asset for the long term.