Opinion 鈥� Page 408
-
-
Comment
Extension of time: Birmingham council vs Paddison Construction
Birmingham council (鈥淏CC鈥�) engaged Paddison Construction (鈥淧addison鈥�) to undertake construction work for a new community and training centre in Birmingham. The contract provided for a completion date of 24 February 2006 which was revised to 17 April 2006. Practical completion was certified as at 23 June 2006. Paddison alleged that ...
-
Comment
Construction faces a worse recession than in the 1990s, says forecast
My good friend Martin Hewes passed me a copy of the latest forecast from Hewes & Associates. It's not good news, I'm afraid. His last forecast was pretty bleak, this is bleaker still.The headline figure of note is the 11.3% drop in new work next year. With a slightly more ...
-
Comment
Down again and more house price falls to follow
Another month, another fall in the Halifax house price index.And we can expect that to continue for some while yet, despite the cash transfusion pumped into the financial system and the monetary defibrillation provided by a concert of central banks cutting interest rates.The patient is ill and recovery will take ...
-
Comment
After the banks are nationalised - will we see a renaissance of public works?
One question has been twitching at the back of my brain for some weeks now.It is this: If the Government is prepared to invest "whatever it takes" to get the wheels of the "unreal" economy that is banking back on the rails, then will it be prepared to invest "whatever ...
-
Comment
Houses set for a revival as flats wane in the wake of credit crunch
If one thing epitomised the boom years in the housing market it was the building of high-density blocks of apartments that were sucked up off plan by eager investors.The credit crunch has changed all that. Outside of London dense schemes of flats are rapidly going out of fashion.Having been for ...
-
Comment
Surveyors smell an ill wind across all construction
The RICS construction survey provides a valuable early indicator of workload trends, so its latest figures showing the slump widening out from house building is cause for concern.You don't see too many charts showing sentiment collapse as fast as it appears to have looking at the charts produced by the ...
-
Comment
House building in the history books
The surveyors' body RICS seems pretty convinced that annual rate of house building in England will fall below 100,000, unless of course something dramatic happens to pick the market up - what who knows?This had me wondering just how low this puts the house building industry compared to periods in ...
-
Comment拢22m later 鈥�
As the mood of the times moves smoothly from neurosis to outright hysteria, the return of the Wembley soap opera is strangely reassuring, in a perverse kind of way.
-
Comment
Forecasters see an 拢8 billion drop for construction work by 2010
So the latest stab by the Construction Products Association to make sense of the economic chaos suggests that construction output will fall 7% over the next three years. That is a loss in cash terms of about 拢8 billion in work by 2010.The pace of decline in sentiment within construction ...
-
CommentMy digital life: Neill Pawsey
Enthusiastic cyber-citizen Neill Pawsey is happy to have meetings, study, chat and read the paper online. The only thing that holds him back is his bandwidth
-
Comment黑洞社区 buys a pint 鈥� for rightmove.co.uk
When I meet Miles Shipside, commercial director at Rightmove.co.uk, he seems like he needs a drink. We meet in the (kind of) splendour of Newport鈥檚 Celtic Manor hotel complex, the chosen venue for the 2010 Ryder Cup.
-
CommentIt all used to be so simple鈥�
鈥� but these days building seems more about feeding the surreal imaginations of planning officers and keeping a whole army of specialist consultants employed.
-
Comment
Pour on water, pour on water
Your article, In the line of fire (18 July, page 72) mentioned, alongside the advantages, some perceived drawbacks to the installation of sprinkler systems in schools.
-
Comment
Bravo Bingham
Tony Bingham鈥檚 regular articles often make a lot of sense, but his article on ditching the training levy (8 August, page 43) seemed to have even more sense per column centimetre than usual.
-
-
CommentWinter warmers
As the nights draw in, hospitality and goodwill abound, from friendly Swedish engineers, an extremely generous salary offer and a kind invitation to take up residence in a caravan