Opinion – Page 375
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CommentThe bridge on the river Tees
Its parents were Eric Fletcher and Margaret Thatcher. Assisting at the birth were 500 midwives. It is now being cared for by the 187,000 people of Stockton-on-Tees
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CommentThe general purpose specialist
If we want to make it through the recession with our highly trained staff intact, we have to carry on doing what we do well, and start doing a lot of things that we don’t
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Why nobody wants to buy
Tumbling fees, dwindling workloads and payment periods stretching beyond the horizon. In the last recession this led to a frenzy of mergers and acquisitions. This time, it's different.According to a report by researcher Corpfin, corporate activity in the first quarter of this year has ground to a virtual halt. There ...
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Short and tweet: Bob Leung
Dispatches from the Twitter social networking site: Bob Leung is the co-founder of Woobius, the collaboration hub for architects and engineers and a partner at Make Architects
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CommentBuilding buys a pint … for Penson Group
“I’m claustrophobic ,” announces Lee Penson, founder of architectural practice Penson Group
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CommentUnequal combat
Small Scottish firm vs Zaha, local resident vs Nick Candy, pensioner vs planners, man vs wife: this week proves that sometimes, just sometimes, the underdog comes out on top
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A matter of consequence
The idea of improving the existing housing stock has been debated and analysed for many years now, especially in the information, advice and guidance for Part L (15 May, page 9)
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CommentThe conservatory con
It’s good news that the regulations are becoming more onerous in England. However, in Scotland we have had minimum U-values for conservatories for some time
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Answering Mr Arrowsmith
As stated in your recent article “Betrayal of trust” (15 May, page 34), NICEIC does have some sympathy with Mr Arrowsmith’s situation
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The key to the code
“The problem is that we are making it up as we go along” (leader, 22 May, page 3)
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But they won’t do VAT
I completely agree with your leader on 13 March that the government should have taken the cue from the EU and cut VAT on maintenance and refurbishment to 5% in the last budget
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CommentWhy nobody wants to buy
Tumbling fees, dwindling workloads and payment periods stretching beyond the horizon
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Playing by the regs
This year there are more government consultations on greening the built environment than ever before.For a start, there are the consultations on the traditional Building Regulations - consultations on Parts L and F were imminent as we went to press. These have been joined by higher, policy-level consultations as the ...
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A glimpse of the future as 56% of surveyors see workload fall
Construction workload is expected to continue to collapse at a rapid pace according to the latest industry survey by the surveyors' body RICS.Surveyors experienced declines in workload across all regions and all sectors illustrating the broad spread of this recession. Across the board, more than half of surveyors saw less ...
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CommentDesign and builders
So Cabe is going to vet public projects to make sure they don’t look completely awful. Well, that’s a good thing of course, but we should ask ourselves why it’s become necessary
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Latest GDP figures confirm plunging construction workload
The update on the preliminary GDP figures for the UK's economic growth confirm construction activity was down in the first quarter by 8.6% compared with a year earlier. This puts industry workload on a level with that last seen in the summer of 2003.The figures have remained unchanged since the ...
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Homes sales continued to perk up in April, but it's too early to call it a recovery
The official figures for property transactions will make comforting reading in April for those selling homes.They seem consistent with the prevailing view that the housing market, in terms of sales and not prices, is showing some signs of bouncing back up from the floor reached at the turn of the ...
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CommentIt's up to us
Your editorial (1 May, page 3) says “the Exchequer is applying brakes by way of efficiency savings”. About time, I say!