Opinion – Page 402
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CommentBuilding buys potatoes…for Kanvas Interiors
If Louise Frostick were ever to meet Jarvis Cocker, it’s fair to assume they wouldn’t get on, at least not on the subject of interior decor.
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Barratt slashes house prices by 43% - good or bad news?
Barratt's attractiveness to investors is a moot point.Some in the City believe the housebuilder is over the worst and say its shares are worth a punt at 60p-ish. They point to the rescue deal it struck with its banks in the summer.Others are more reticent. Included in that camp is ...
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Barratt chairman puts his money where his mouth is
At Barratt's trading update this morning one analyst questioned whether FD Mark Pain or chief exec Mark Clare would be buying shares in the company any time soon."It's a good mark of confidence from the directors in the company's fortunes," he pointed out.Pain was cagey and joked that his wife ...
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How bad will deflation be for UK construction?
The talk now is not of inflation but deflation.The latest inflation figures showed a fall for the first time in 15 months and the Prime Minister chided the opposition with the line that if this year was about inflation next year is about deflation.But what would it mean for construction?Well ...
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NHBC latest figures show deepening pain for house building in 2009
The NHBC figures for October show private sector house building plumbing new depths.The number of new registrations for the month dropped to just 3,454, compared with 14,698 last year. Taking the three months to the end of October registrations were down by 73%.While private sector completions were a shade perkier ...
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Are plunging rents a prelude to a mass buy-to-let sell off?
Here are the figures that the buy-to-let critics and cynics have been waiting for. Rents are plunging.Okay, this is only one month's figures from the surveyors' body RICS, but the many buy-to-let critics will see these as heralding a transformation of buy-to-let bulls into buy-to-let rats ready to flee the ...
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Asking prices crumble as hope of housing market recovery fades
For those who may have held lingering hopes of a lift in the housing market after the various interventions by the Government and the Bank of England of late will be disappointed by the message coming from the latest Rightmove figures.The November data suggests that increasingly desperate sellers are dropping ...
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CommentThe uses of adversity
No two ways about it: the downturn is depressing for everybody, except perhaps the bankers who kept their bonuses. But, says Gus Alexander, there are crumbs of comfort if you search hard
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CommentWebmaster top tips: Accessibility
Building's webmaster continues his series of handy hints by talking you through how to make your site accessible
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A decade of pay growth and shortening hours for the construction workforce
Whatever the current worries facing those working in construction, they can reflect on the past 10 years with satisfaction when it comes to pay and hours worked.Pay has risen far faster than for most other sectors and the number of paid working hours has fallen.Delving into the 2008 Annual Survey ...
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MJ Gleeson boss bags £70k bonus
When MJ Gleeson chief exec Paul Wallwork announced a pre-tax loss of £21m last month, he warned of more job cuts to follow the 335 already made this year.His £70k bonus - announced this week - must have been pretty hard to swallow for those already shown the door.The company ...
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CommentBuilding buys a pint … for Whitelaw Turkington
“Did you hear about that French guy who got his hand stuck down the toilet today?” Ian Turkington announces before I’ve even sat down. Wow, this is going to be an interesting night.
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CommentWe’ve got the answers!
To such questions as ‘How do you survive the recession using only baked beans and window cleaning fluid?’, ‘Does a large prison sound less scary than a Titan prison?’ and “Where do all the leaves go?’
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Asking the impossible
I read with some interest your article (17 October, page 24) on making owners improve property before letting it out or selling it.
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Monkeying around
The OFT has found some recruitment companies guilty of price fixing. Why is it that nothing surprises me any more?
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Energy challenges
The shortage of assessors caused by the dearth of green projects (24 October, page 50) could be the least of our worries in the looming skills crisis.
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CommentEarn your spurs
As a Spurs supporter and frequent attender at White Hart Lane, I strongly welcome the confirmation of the development plans for a new stadium. However, a critical issue will be accessibility to the new ground.
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Wrapping up waste
Colin Mitchell makes a number of points about the early development of site waste management plans (SWMPs) and the need for mechanisms for identifying, measuring and scoring approaches to SWMP regulations (September 12, page 93).
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CommentScaling new heights
Thanks to Dezirée Lindsay from Dallas who sent us this astonishing picture of a digger clawing its way up a building.