More Comment – Page 547
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CommentUnder pressure
Crazed drunken rants, crushing defeats and public humiliation were rife in a week the construction industry will remember less than fondly. And then there’s that OFT thing…
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Due diligence: Lambson Fine Chemicals Ltd vs Merlion Capital Housing Ltd
In May 2004, Lambson Fine Chemicals Ltd sold a 40-acre industrial property to Merlion Capital Housing Ltd for £12.25m. The property had been used for the manufacture of chemicals since the 1860s. By the late 1940s it was owned by Laporte and used for the manufacture of suphuric acid, sodium ...
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CommentFirst impressions: Projects by Alsop and Cube Design
University of East London student comments on some recent projects shown on the Building website
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CommentWhen the fix is in
There’s nothing wrong with prequalification in theory. Alas, there’s no shortage of things wrong with it in practice. Greg Verhoef explains how the system works
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Comment10 years of the Construction Act
Ten years after it became law, the Construction Act is a boisterous, perplexing triumph. Here’s its biography. Overleaf, Rudi Klein and Dominic Helps add their views, and we hear from one man who went through the mill and survived
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A sunnier picture
I was somewhat bemused by your recent article on the lack of demand for zero-carbon housing (4 April, page 68-71), because it almost completely contradicts our experience of supplying solar photovoltaic systems to homeowners and housebuilders.
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All open and above board
I read with interest Liam Holder’s letter (4 April, page 38) suggesting that my article on SGS vs Barratt (14 March, page 70) breached some kind of “assumed” confidentiality.Although I acknowledge the general assumption is that adjudication is private and notionally confidential, I have yet to see any law that ...
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CommentIt’s housing, stupid
What’s the one thing that affects our personal wellbeing, our personal wealth and our personal future more than any other? And what do you think might happen to any government that threatens it?
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Building buys a pint … at the NSPCC pub quiz
Right. Here we go. The NSPCC pub quiz. A low-pressure affair you might think for the hacks at Building magazine, but there is professional pride at stake here.
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CommentWeb watch - Cover me!
On Building.co.uk this week we have had running coverage of the OFT investigation, one of the biggest stories of the year, and we’ve devised new ways to keep you informed. Alex Smith reports
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CommentMy favourites … Lorna Markham
www.moveflat.comMy landlord is selling my house, so I'm looking for a new place to live. This flat hunting site is more intelligible than many others.www.horselatitudes.co.ukThis blog is written by my friends who search out new and old music, films, technology and design, and post about what they like. A bit ...
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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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Wonders & blunders
A tale of two London stations this week – one a glorious example of what the new can bring to the old, the other a grim warning of what it can take away, says Robert Clark
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Will house building lead construction into recession?
Reading the news in the FT that Merrill Lynch's Mark Hake, the longstanding construction industry analyst, has downgraded house builders was not good to hear.But more worrying to the industry as a whole is that he seems to be suggesting industry volumes will drop by a quarter this year. That ...
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Small building firms squeezed as housing work shrinks
Local builders appear to be taking a bashing as a combination of householders with less money in their pockets and a freezing housing market takes its toll.Each quarter their trade body FMB conducts a state of trade survey where it measures (among other things) the balance between those seeing workload ...
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Consensus grows on house price falls
Each week with each piece of data and each new forecast the balance of probability weighs increasingly heavily on the side of house prices falling rather than remaining flat this year.Today we see released the spring Item Club economic outlook for business and the latest Rightmove figures on asking prices ...
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CommentA sackload of trouble
Can a party to an adjudication introduce evidence that wasn’t previously disclosed if it fundamentally alters the original claim? The answer used to be no, but a recent judgment may have reversed this
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CommentHansom: Digital watch
Beware the dangers of the digital age: you design a holiday resort in Italy and, thanks to Google Earth, you don’t even get to go and ‘check its progress’. And don’t even talk to me about Facebook …