Opinion – Page 380
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Comment
Little to stop the slide in house prices, says Hometrack
Two weeks ago there was growing optimism within the housing market. One budget later and there is every sign that we may re-enter a period of deepening pessimism with commentary to suit.I'd be surprised if the latest British Bankers' Association figures showing mortgage lending slowing isn't seized on and thrown ...
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Comment
Output figures signal more bad news
The ONS released preliminary estimates of GDP for the first quarter of 2009 and it wasn't pretty. Estimates from macroeconomic forecasters had suggested that GDP would fall 1.5%-1.6% in Q1 compared to the previous quarter. In fact, it was 1.9%. Within the GDP fall in the first quarter, construction fell ...
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Comment
Construction collapse was faster than first thought, say ONS statisticians
Construction output fell a further 2.4% in the first quarter of this year, according to estimates plugged into the official data used to calculate the UK gross domestic product.The figures for total output of the UK economy in the first quarter show a disturbing fall of 1.9%, with construction a ...
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Comment
It's an ill wind...
There will be some positive outcomes from this global recession. The office market is a case in point and I believe that the economic climate will lead, and is already leading, to higher quality, better functioning buildings
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Comment
Just plane wrong
It’s easy to portray Tamsin Omond as childish (27 March, page 42), but setting her against an ageing politician (whose age I noted wasn’t published) just doesn’t work
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Comment
The noble game
I am fixture secretary for Peper Harow Cricket Club, and we are desperately trying to raise funds to complete phase two of our pavilion
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Comment
Correction
Due to a production error, the photographs of Andy Ritchie, global board director of Ryder Levett Bucknall, and Phil Dalglish, Saudi Arabia director for Buro Happold, were inadvertently transposed in the article “Make a wish” (9 April)
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CommentHansom: Bitter pills
There’s been much that’s hard to swallow of late in the world of construction, whether it be workers standing idle, a critic’s harsh words, a questionable quiz defeat or a whole sheep’s head
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CommentHuman beans
Our percentage fee culture treats architects and engineers like commodities and actually pays them less the better their designs work. Time for a rethink
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CommentWonders & blunders
Erica Wagner chooses two avant-garde icons for us, one of them a triumph of American engineering, the other an Anglo-Italian blemish on the Beaubourg
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CommentIs the housing market turning?
This is, of course, the question that everybody wants to know the answer to. So let’s put all the evidence together and work out what it tells us...
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CommentPlaying golf with Superman: Multiple adjudications
If you had to decide a dispute involving 51,000 job orders in 28 days, would you need to wear your underpants outside your clothes? Well, the following case put this to the test
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Comment
Lip service won't do: Discrimination in construction
Now there’s even more reason to make clear your commitment to equality and diversity: if you don’t, you won’t secure those multimillion-pound public sector contracts
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CommentI beg to differ: Response to Rupert Choat on the Construction Act
Rupert Choat has many useful things to say about the proposed amendments to the Construction Act. But in his criticism of payment security, he’s just plain wrong
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CommentApprenticeships: has the system collapsed?
Apprentices are one of the main victims of the recession, but if they suffer today, it’s a sure thing that the rest of the industry will suffer tomorrow. So how can they be saved?
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CommentAbout all we could hope for
The Budget might not have been all that the industry would have wished for, but for a country facing its biggest public debt since the war, it was about what you’d expect
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CommentWeb poll: The Chelsea Barracks furore
As Prince Charles pooh-poohed Lord Rogers’ design and proposed Quinlan Terry instead, nearly 1,000 readers rushed to our online poll to tell us which they prefer. The results so far? Terry 67%, Rogers 33%
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Comment
NSCC survey of specialists highlights strategic industry problems
I was passed a draft copy of the latest state of trade survey undertaken by the specialist contractors' body NSCC. It covers the first quarter of this year and tells pretty much the story you'd expect - orders and inquiries down and firms working at lower and lower capacity.It is, ...
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Comment
Budget 2009: Draw your own conclusions, if you can
"I can't quite decide whether it was smoke or mirrors," said KBC Peel Hunt analyst Robin Hardy in summing up yesterday's Budget.Most observers said the Chancellor's economic growth forecasts were chipper to say the least and when asked to pick out the positives, there was generally an uneasy silence at ...