More Comment – Page 697
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Comment
Take cover
Horbury Building Systems Limited had erected ceilings within in a cinema complex. The ceiling to one of the cinemas collapsed, and the whole complex had been closed for several weeks. Clause 4.1 of the insurance policy said that Hampden Insurance would indemnify Horbury Building Systems “in respect of … ...
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CommentThe Butler test
Adjudicators, like prime ministers, rely on expert evidence to come to decisions. But what if they’re given duff information that reinforces their own bias?
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CommentMultiplex on the spot
The FA may have other things on its mind than the construction of Wembley, but news that the stadium is presently hosting a good old-fashioned firefight between sub and main contractors should give anyone left at Soho Square additional cause for concern.
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Comment
Czech list
The Czech Republic has updated its laws on public procurement to bring them into line with European rules – but there are one or two things you ought to know
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Comment
The Holyrood treatment
Cary Grant could have given a valuable lesson in construction procurement to the “client” for the Scottish parliament building (23 July, page 50) – or the client for any large or complex development, come to that.
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Comment
It’s just cement to be
With the introduction of the European Landfill Directive, the UK’s remediation industry must face the fact that it has to find an alternative to a dig-and-dump strategy for contaminated land (16 July, page 14).
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Comment
A fair point
I was reading the article “Beauty is but skin deep …” (18 June, pages 26-28) and noticed that you show a photograph of the Saga headquarters in Folkestone, Kent, to illustrate the leaky windows that it has been cursed with. I would just like to point out that the photograph ...
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Comment
Dear Tony ...
I think the “answer on a postcard” to Tony Bingham’s question of how to gather evidence of site disruptions at the time they occur (16 July, page 52) is to keep a site diary. A well-kept and detailed diary is invaluable to anyone having to prepare or determine claims for ...
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Comment
… or, perhaps, Dear Diary
The answer has to be site diaries maintained by all supervisory staff from trade supervisor upwards. There should be an item in the bill for them, their content specified in the spec and, for programmes using the Society of Construction Law protocol, a withholding of a percentage of the account ...
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Comment
Third time unlucky
This is a successful appeal by the respondent, Kingston Upon Hull City Council, from the decision of the Court of Appeal reported in Legal Briefing No.8 of 2004. The applicant had worked for the respondent local authority as an environmental health officer and had been driven from his job by ...
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Comment
The tyranny of taste
The dead hand of totalitarian modernism should be prised from the shoulders of living architects: it was no more than a style among many others
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Comment
Counting all the costs
In the issue of 16 July, your leader referred to “consistently reduced construction costs”, and Alistair McAlpine commented that “a cheap price and a silver tongue” were generally accepted as “an alternative to expertise”.
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Comment
A binding non-binding decision
Tim Elliott (16 July, page 51) applauds the decision of His Honour Judge Thornton in William Verry Ltd vs North West London Communal Mikrah.
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Comment
Neanderthal Man alive and well
I was rather surprised to read your comment “Neanderthal Man no longer roams the sites of the land, terrorising small contractors with the assistance of fine legal minds” (16 July, page 3). My job for the past 10 years has been to defend my employer (a subcontractor) against precisely that. ...
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Comment
A reader writes: The facts of death
After our interview with the family of Patrick O’Sullivan, who was killed on the Wembley site, a reader gives us his experience of a fatality during a concrete pour
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Comment
Conspiracy uncovered
Dominic Helps If you’re in any doubt about what constitutes collusive tendering, the Office of Fair Trading has just published a decision that makes it absolutely clear
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Comment
It’s a long, long road
Tony Bingham Those canny Irish have put their £4bn roadbuilding programme on hold until they see what happens to the English experiment with design-and-build
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Comment
The pensions black hole
Patrick Kennedy and Caoimhe O’Neill If you sign a contract with a firm that has an underfunded final salary pension scheme, it could drag you into the mire too