At the end of another busy year, here’s a reminder of the features and interviews that stood out for our readers
Every day Building publishes columns written by some of the finest writers and biggest names in the UK construction industry. Here we have compiled a list of the most-read opinion pieces to appear on our website over the entire year.
The list, based on unique page views according to Google Analytics, places the most popular stories at the top of the rankings.
1. Hopes and fears for construction in 2022
Published January
It was impossible to predict some of the seismic events that have shaped 2022 but we began the year with a collation of industry forecasts from prominent people. Who came closest to getting it right?
Click here to read the full article
2. We can’t tackle embodied carbon if we don’t measure it properly
Published July
Trying to establish the true carbon baseline for a project is often clunky and inefficient, but there are ways we can improve the process. Anna Foden, ISG’s head of sustainability for UK fitout and retail told us how.
Click here to read the full article
3. This has to be the year to do things differently
Published February
Mark Farmer has long been on a mission to change the way we build for the better. At the start of 2022 he argued that the sector’s priorities were changing and it was down to us to make sure this change was for the better.
Click here to read the full article
4. Why new safety laws could do more harm than good
Published February
Graham Watts is chief executive of the Construction Industry Council. His assessment of the Building Safety Bill and his view that amendments were likely to restrict the industry’s capacity to both remediate unsafe buildings and build safe new housing attracted a great deal of interest.
Click here to read the full article
5. A tribute to Max Fordham
Published January
The pioneering building services engineer dies right at the start of the year. Thomas Lane says he was was that rare person – a highly original and inventive thinker in a notoriously conservative industry.
Click here to read the full article
6. A lesson to us all: how Scottish schools are tackling the energy performance gap
Published June
A simple funding policy has been incentivising the uptake of Passivhaus for schools in Scotland. Sarah Lewis, research and policy director at Passivhaus Trust said it should be applied across the UK.
Click here to read the full article
7. The UK construction industry is key to delivering ‘Global Britain’
Published August
We can argue until we drop about the merits (or lack of them) of the decision to leave the EU, Jason Millett, CEO of Mace Consult, argued that our sector should be a priority for a super-charged post-Brexit trade policy.
Click here to read the full article
8. New phase begins at Kier as confident Davies looks to future after travails of past
Published January
News that Kier was close to announcing a deal to buy Tilbury Douglas prompted a lot of interest in early 2022. It came to nothing two months later but Dave Rogers says it nevertheless showed how far the business had come since the nadir of 2018.
Click here to read the full article
9. Heat pumps: no silver bullet in the journey to net zero
Published April
The arguments continue over how best (and cheapest) to heat our homes but Cundall’s Alan Fogarty took aim at the government’s “token” incentives for change that emerged in last spring’s energy security strategy and which placed too much onus on consumers.
Click gere to read the full article
10. Does Gove’s £4bn cladding levy mark the start of an anti-development era?
Published January
Michael Gove began and ended the year as housing secretary, although a few other people took a turn in the role in between. His attempts to force housebuilders to take full responsibility for the remediation of defective cladding have divided the industry and are still rumbling on.
No comments yet