All Leader articles – Page 32
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CommentState aid
So, is the industry about to enter a more enlightened era? That’s the idea behind this week’s launch of an industry–government manifesto for improving construction’s performance in several key areas, from sustainability in the ecological sense to sustainability in training and recruitment.
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CommentJust no more U-turns, OK?
Gordon Brown is probably regretting a number of things right now – the 10p tax debacle, Crewe and Nantwich by-election tactics, and the sly assault on gas-guzzling cars in the last Budget spring readily to mind.
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CommentWhat happens in the second act?
After what has seemed like endless dithering on the part of the government, and endless lobbying campaigns by the interested parties, the reform of the 1996 Construction Act is finally on its way.
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CommentIt just gets worse
When the Office of Fair Trading accuses the supermarkets of price fixing, consumers don’t demand assurances at the checkout that the butter they’re buying has been fairly priced.
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CommentParadise postponed
You don’t hear much about Sir John Egan these days. Integrated teams, lean construction, innovation … all the great doctrines he set out in Rethinking Construction back in 1998 have faded with the years. It’s not hard to see why.
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CommentMarket testing sustainability
Is sustainability going to be the next casualty of the credit crunch? With houses recording their first annual fall for 12 years, and Tony Pidgley describing the crisis as worse than the nineties, it’s hard to imagine consumers squandering their angst on solar panels.
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CommentIn urgent need of repair
What a shabby week it’s been for construction. In fact, one of the shabbiest weeks in living memory.
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CommentSquashed flat
So farewell to Erinaceous, possibly the most bizarrely named company in the construction sector: the hedgehog has finally curled into a ball and rolled out of the door.
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CommentSurvival of the fittest
At the start of the year we carried a comment piece from David Pretty, the former Barratt chief executive, detailing two scenarios that housebuilders would have in place in the run-up to the spring selling season.
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CommentAll your regs in one basket
Hallelujah. The government is finally taming the Building Regulations.
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CommentEgan updated
So Sir John Egan has finally been relieved of the burden of dragging the construction industry kicking and screaming into the 21st century.
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CommentShould we vote for Ken again?
It may not have the drama of the race between Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton, but the battle for the hot seat in London’s City Hall is every bit as fierce.
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CommentHow safe are the specialists?
Another well known family name looks like becoming history this week. In an echo of the famous sale of Laing to O’Rourke in 2002, Hills Electrical was taken over by one of its rivals for the nominal sum of a pound.
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CommentA done deal, but is it a good one?
Carillion boss John McDonough can’t be beaten for chutzpah.
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CommentIs Prince Charles right?
Prince Charles’ speech on new buildings in old places last week was not the bombshell lobbed by his “monstrous carbuncle” diatribe of 1984, which precipitated a nationwide reaction by planning authorities against modern architecture.
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CommentThat was then, this is now
So once the project team have finished sighing with relief, no doubt their chests will swell with pride: Terminal 5 has come in on time and to budget.
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CommentAre we gliding or plummeting?
“In 2008 it is likely that a less buoyant housing market will go hand in hand with slower growth in consumer spending. In the short run, that will slow economic activity, possibly quite sharply.”