The £350m London estate redevelopment project, located next to the £1bn Chelsea Barracks scheme, is the biggest in the council pipeline.

Phase one of the project is expected to cost around £97m and will be entirely council funded to allow it to decant residents from future phases.

The successful design and build contractor would start on site next year, delivering two residential blocks of over 200 mixed tenure homes.

The job will include the first of the new planned open public squares, setting the design quality and delivery intentions for the new Ebury.

Firms have been given until 7 August to express an interest on the web portal with the contract due to start at the end of January next year.

The full scheme is expected to take around 10 years to complete.

Ebury Bridge Estate is the biggest of 10 planned estate redevelopment plans within the London borough and was first earmarked for regeneration eight years ago.

The full project involves demolition of around eight buildings to make way for 750 homes, half of which would be affordable.

Bombardier today announced the Learjet 75 Liberty as its newest offering in the storied business jet brand. It’s “a rescoped aircraft that’s going to be cost-competitive from an operating cost perspective but also purchase cost perspective with Part 23 light jets,” Bombardier Business Aircraft spokesman Mark Masluch told AIN. To accomplish this, the Liberty will have fewer seats and options than the original Learjet, shaving about $3 million off the price tag while keeping the performance, the Canadian airframer said.

Bombardier hopes the lower price tag will drive a new segment of buyers to the Wichita-assembled aircraft, which has seen steadily declining deliveries over the past five years to just a dozen last year, according to data from the General Aviation Manufacturers Association.  

At $9.9 million, the Liberty sheds two seats in the forward cabin—for a total of six seats—replaced by two fold-down ottomans and fold-out tables, creating what it calls the “executive suite” for the two remaining seats in the forward section of the cabin, which is separated from the cockpit by a sliding pocket door. In the aft cabin, the four remaining seats are placed in a club configuration.

“You’re getting a light jet that not only flies faster, flies farther but [also] has the largest seated room in the cabin [in the light-jet category],” Masluch added.

The jet retains its 51,000-foot ceiling and its two Honeywell TFE731-40BR engines, each with 3,850 pounds of thrust. High-speed cruise remains Mach 0.79 but range improves by 40 nm to 2,080 nm with NBAA IFR reserves. Also standard on the Liberty is the Bombardier Vision flight deck with the recently announced upgrade to the jet's Garmin G5000 avionics, as well as Gogo ATG 4G wireless connectivity. Deliveries are expected to begin in 2020.

What was standard on the Learjet 75 will be optional on the Liberty, such as the APU and external lights, Masluch explained. “It’s a little bit more flexible approach to the program that allows us to get in the price range to more directly compete with light jets in the Part 23 realm,” he said, noting that the Liberty will retain the Learjet 75’s Part 25 certification.

Liberty essentially replaces what the market has known as the Learjet 75. Customers who would want a Learjet 75 would simply order the options that come with the Liberty, as well as an eight-seat cabin. 

“Having a product that’s competitive and aligned with market demand is going to really help stabilize the long-term manufacturing part of the Wichita site,” Masluch added. “This really kind of provides a lot of leg room in terms of our production capacities for Learjet aircraft with a product that’s rightly scoped for the market and competes more directly with light jets that are Part 23 certified.”

Uncertainty seems to be everywhere.

Whether it’s scale up, slow down or Brexit jitters, it pays to do a little workforce planning.

With any impact on your business, your workforce is usually affected in some way.

You may be looking for employees to do more or wondering how to keep people motivated, worried about retaining key people or concerned whether everyone is pulling their weight.

If like most small and medium-sized businesses you don’t have specialist expertise within your organisation, having an intelligent HR partner can make all the difference.

Melius works with business owners to provide options and enable a pro-active approach to workforce issues arising from uncertainty.

We’d love to share a coffee when you’ve got a spare half hour, to explore your concerns and offer our perspective.

Topics we can explore could include:

·        How to approach restructuring programmes

·        How to retain key employees during any workforce streamlining

·        How to attract the best individuals in a tight labour market

·        How to develop the leaders and managers of the future

·        How to flex workloads and job roles to avoid redundancies

·        How to avoid carrying less productive individuals

·        How outplacement support can make parting a positive experience