More Comment – Page 667
-
CommentA hard way to make a living
It defies logic really. We’ve had 12 years of sustained growth, PFI contracts are going begging and any client you talk to says there aren’t enough good contractors to go round.
-
CommentWonders & blunders
No-nonsense broadcaster Robert Elms adores Lasdun’s austere Thamesside masterpiece, but has no time for showy St Pancras
-
Comment
The cost of copyright infringement
Phonographic Performance Ltd (PPL) exists to enforce and protect the exclusive right to play in public, and to authorise the playing in public of, copyrighted sound recordings that have been issued to the public. Mr Reader was part of a partnership that owned a club in Brighton. In 1999, ...
-
CommentWatching their own backs
Designers have been terrified into assuming responsibility for site safety – so much so that they now have to spend more time saving themselves than the workers
-
-
CommentIt’s down to the developer
A half-baked rethink of the law is unlikely to increase project safety. Placing the burden of responsibility at clients’ doorsteps is a much more effective solution
-
CommentThe Dickens of a case
Mr Bumble had a point when he said the ‘law is a ass’ – as was borne out recently by a High Court battle that could have been settled with a phone call
-
Comment
How to sing like a canary
The Office of Fair Trading is putting firms who operate cartels in a dilemma: do they keep shtoom and hope nobody finds out – or blow the whistle first?
-
CommentGo back to square one
The law dealing with negligence and defective buildings is a mess, and every time the courts look at it, they make things worse. We need to start again …
-
Comment
Bingham bashing
I was the architect involved in the case that Tony Bingham wrote about in his article “Too much to ask for” (27 May, page 48).
-
Comment
Nice NEC does it
Ann Minogue (27 May, page 47) wrote: “At last, someone has produced a consultancy agreement that applies the same terms for each member of the team.”
-
Comment
Conspiracy theory
Stephen Ratcliffe, chief executive of the Construction Confederation, suggests that my article on the ailing CSCS scheme amounts to an outlandish conspiracy theory (20 May, page 17).
-
Comment
Standard bearer
I find it difficult to understand why Alan Thomas (Letters, 29 April, page 39) doesn’t think the BRE certification scheme could work for modern methods of construction, particularly as he quotes Peter Hewlett’s paper detailing the methodology of the British Board of Agrément’s approval scheme.
-
Comment
When the wind doesn’t blow
You have asked for opinions on starting a new nuclear power station program (20 May, page 13).
-
Comment
English: a construction skill
Your feature on immigration from the new entrants to the European Union (20 May, pages 26-29) chimes with the findings of the RICS’ UK construction industry survey earlier this year.
-
CommentFlexibility is your friend
Flexible working and construction aren’t natural stablemates. Job-sharing or part-time professionals are by and large an anathema, and paid leave for new fathers and mothers is often no more than the statutory minimum.
-
Comment
Domestic dispute
Mr Cartwright was an adjudicator in respect of a dispute between Miss Lydia Fay and Colonial Preservation & Construction Ltd regarding a JCT Building Contract. He had been appointed by the RICS and had issued his terms and conditions to the parties. He apportioned his fee on a 50/50 ...
-
CommentSome strings attached
As the plan to build sustainable communities on public land begins to take shape, we should make social inclusion a condition for funding and planning permission