Opinion – Page 337
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CommentCould you vote labour again?
The industry used to vote how it wanted, safe in the knowledge that it wouldn’t change a thing. Back in 2005 most of the industry thought that Labour had the best economic policies, yet felt free to vote Tory
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Victim of construction's mass redundancies?
Here’s a story: A woman called Amy Betts-Priddy was made redundant by Turner & Townsend last year. Rather than just accept it, she took the firm to an employment tribunal last week, claiming unfair dismissal, racial discrimination and sex discrimination. At the hearing she told the tribunal panel:- She was ...
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Housebuilder bonuses: have bosses lost the plot?
This week saw housebuilder Bovis Homes give 95,000 shares to chief executive David Ritchie in place of a cash bonus. The £282m turnover housebuilder said a cash bonus would be “inappropriate” given the state of the market.In a week when the Association of British Insurers made rumblings about the excesses ...
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Local builders still deep in recession says latest FMB survey
Evidence that construction is still far from free from the grip of recession has come from the FMB, the trade body that represents many of Britain’s local builders.The survey results show a market that remained in rapid retreat during the first quarter of this year.There is some good news as ...
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Explanations on why the jobs figures and output figures don’t seem to match
The Office of National Statistics has released an article that throws some light on the figures for construction jobs.I for one have been rather confounded by the construction jobs figures which seem to have understated the devastation on the ground, particularly in the wake of the collapse in house building.Indeed ...
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Joy deferred as CIPS shows construction activity grows for first time in two years
So the construction activity indicator produced by the buyers’ body CIPS finally points to growth after two years of measuring falling workloads. But this seemingly uplifting moment appears to have brought little joy.The March figure popped its head above the 50 no-change mark on the back of rising activity in ...
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Bleak and tortured: Kapoor's Orbit is hardly an Olympic ideal
London’s newly unveiled Olympic sculpture has been lambsated by a wave of criticsm and bad publicity. Does it deserve it?
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CommentWhat politicians really think
It is in a government’s nature to cut capital spending before public revenue. But the Charter 284 cause can be served by appealing to politicians’ worst instincts
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CommentWonders & blunders
Richard Steer is staggered by an extraordinary structure built for the last Olympics, but is worried that London’s efforts will be blighted by its industrial past
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Vote with your trolleys
Starting tomorrow morning, my usual trip to Tesco will now be to one of their competitors (“Tesco sends design and QS work to India”, 12 March, page 13)
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Loyalty discarded
A bit short-sighted from Tesco. Most of its current business is in UK and it does place a strong emphasis on its loyalty cards so presumably it believes in loyalty – or am I a bit naive? I will go somewhere else for my shopping in future.George Smith
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Nobody was left
Complaining about Tesco’s outsourcing of its suppliers, architects and surveyors reminds me of the poem by the German pastor Martin Niemöller, First They Came, in which he tells how he failed to speak up when the Nazis took away communists, then trade unionists, and then Jews because he was none ...
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CommentOther Jarvises
You may have noted in the press that the rail maintenance company Jarvis Plc has announced that it is going into administration. We wish to make it known that Jarvis Group Limited has no connections, business or otherwise, with the above named company
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Missing Scotland
We are disappointed that the Scottish government’s call for a programme of accelerated capital spending of some £350m in the Budget has not been answered
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Budget blues
Two years ago they removed the tax relief available for building factories, roads, railways, airports – that is, industrial building allowances
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Small is beautiful
I have noticed the adverts in Building for the Good Employer Guide you will be publishing in October. I think it’s a real shame you limit entry to firms employing at least 30 UK-based professional staff, and I feel you are missing a trick here