More Comment – Page 535
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CommentSinging the blues
What a diabolical week. The swingeing job cuts – 4,000 across publicly quoted companies alone – make painful reading and all the signs are that things are going to get an awful lot worse.
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CommentBuilding buys a pint … for Inbuilt Consulting
Chosen watering hole: The Paper Mill, Apsley, Hertfordshire Ambience: Pleasant faux-country pub by a canal Topics: How to salvage Paul’s architectural agricultural endeavours, and sunflower envy Drinks drunk: 5 pints of ale, 2 pints of lager, 3 white wines, 3 red wines, mineral water, glass of tonic
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CommentMy digital life: Robert Adam
Addicted to books, BlackBerries and baiting Kevin McCloud, architect Robert Adam courts controversy online as well as off, as Charlotte Matheson found out
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CommentOoh matron!
Despite the gloom, the industry has been Carrying On, thanks to some deliciously wobbly desserts and some naughty business in a public park
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House prices are falling twice as fast as in 1990 crash
I'll be honest I wasn't expecting the latest Halifax (HBOS) house price figures to be quite as dramatic as they were - showing a further 2% drop in June.Not that I am overly surprised, but on nothing more than a hunch I had expected the rate of fall in June ...
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Media plays down housing crisis - 160,000 house building jobs to go
Not a headline you might expect. And let's hope the house building industry doesn't shed 160,000 jobs, but it is looking ever more likely.First let's get one thing out of the way. The media is blamed for hyping the crisis we now find ourselves in. To hold that view is ...
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CommentMisery: Crest Nicholson vs Mr & Mrs Western
So you buy a new house, find some flaws, get nowhere with the builder and go to arbitration. At which point your troubles really begin …
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CommentEastern promises
The UK’s own history makes it uniquely placed to partner China in transforming old industries and leading the world in putting eco principles into practice, says John Prescott
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CommentPFI: Opportunity still knocks
Although PFI disaster stories receive a fair bit of publicity, they haven’t dissuaded contractors from signing up
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Withholding notices: Aedas Architects vs Skanska Construction UK
This dispute arose out of works done on contracts to renovate some schools in Midlothian. The claimant sought periodical payments but was met with refusal because the Defendant claimed that it had large and on-going contra set-offs which were much more than what the claimant was pursuing.The claimant argued ...
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CommentChina special: dispute resolution
The Chinese legal system is improving rapidly, but foreign parties still need to approach its dispute resolution procedures with caution
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CommentBuilding buys a pint … for Atkins, Shanghai
Paul Rice associate director, Atkins ShanghaiStuart Macdonald, Building … and 20 drunken Australian embassy staff and guests
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CommentOnly yourselves to blame
Managers found guilty of causing death by a 'gross breach' of care are liable to criminal conviction, but the Corporate Manslaughter act is clear on how to avoid a prosecution
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China: the tendering process
China’s fledgling tendering process has overcome many of its teething problems, but is still unsuited to large complicated projects. Here’s how it works
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Fool's gold
If Michael Gove gets into government, he’ll have to learn pretty quick that we haven’t had a system based on land-use planning since 2004.
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A cynic writes …
The government claims it will make a £100bn investment in wind power over 12 years (26 June, www.building.co.uk).
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Discrimination is bad
Regarding Harriet Harman’s plans for positive discrimination (26 June, www.building.co.uk), many of these laws are reasonable but surely the government is allowing ethnic minorities the opportunity to claim racial discrimination if a white person with a similar set of skills and qualifications is selected for a position that they have ...
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Discrimination is good
There is currently a great deal of misinformation in the press about the review of the Association of British Insurers’ (ABI) guidance document, Fire Performance of Sandwich Panel Systems.
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CommentMy digital life: Tim Broyd
Tim Broyd is an online shopaholic. The web is his clothes store, television, supermarket, noticeboard, travel agent and, most importantly, a refuge for the hopelessly car-obsessed.