Opinion – Page 564
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Comment
Tweaking the act
I have just read Tony Bingham’s article in this week’s Building (8 October, page 54). I am aghast at the indecision of review panel number one – the looking at changes to the Construction Act’s payment rules – which surely must have the sense to recognise injustice and abuse when ...
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Comment
The wrong kind of demand
Nick Lane is right to sound a warning about using winding-up petitions to make debtors cough up (3 September, page 52).
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Comment
Be a record maker
I read with interest the excellent article entitled “Dear site diary” by Andrew Farrer (8 October, page 34).
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Comment
A site issue
Imposing stricter safety regulations on the architect will not make construction safer as they are too far removed from the front line of construction (1 October, page 15).
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Comment
Miscalculation
In the commentary accompanying your top 200 consultants feature (1 October, page 45), you say FaberMaunsell has 16,000 staff following acquisition of Oscar Faber in 2001.
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CommentOpen mike: Against CABE
CABE’s apparently enlightened opinion that architecture is a force for social good conceals a totalitarian approach to human nature. Luckily, however, it’s wrong
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CommentMean streets
If you want to make a difference to the quality of Britain’s environment, let’s have a crack at our ungenerous, confusing and arbitrary signage
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Comment
Shifting earth
This was an appeal by Mowlem against an arbitrator’s award. Mowlem was main contractor on a development of retail premises and had subcontracted the earthworks and associated design and construction of retaining walls to PHI. PHI’s work essentially entailed construction of terracing to form suitably level areas which could when ...
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CommentDon’t panic
The housing market. It’s a national obsession. Doubly so if you work in the construction industry and your memory stretches back to the early 1990s, the big crash and the grisly business of cutting people out of the wreckage of their homes and jobs.
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Comment
Time to go …
Jon Rouse The question hanging over much of northern England is: how bad does a neighbourhood have to be before the only thing that can improve it is a bulldozer?
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Comment
Don’t twist my words
Open mike: Ashley Pigott’s attack on construction management’s drew on statements made at the Fraser inquiry into Holyrood. Here, the man who made them explains what he meant …
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CommentProblem, solved
Andrew Hemsley - Wrong contract rates are a classic construction conundrum, to which the courts have provided a beautifully simple answer. So everyone should learn it
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CommentSafety deposit
Tony Bingham - The use of trust funds to protect against client insolvency is a very good idea. So why did parliament reject the idea 10 years ago? And is it ready to reconsider?
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Comment
Can I interest you in insurance?
Antoinette Jucker - Next year, draconian regulations are going to be imposed on any firm that so much as thinks about arranging insurance. Here’s how the system will work
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Comment
A loss of confidence
Be warned: anyone who acts as an expert witness, instructs lawyers or prepares documents in support of claims can no longer take legal privilege for granted
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Comment
Amphibious thinking
Is our industry taking the recent shock announcements of rises in carbon levels, and its potential impact upon global warming, seriously enough? The social and moral responsibility of the construction industry to engage in sustainable construction is two-fold. First, we must take measures to protect, and if possible enhance, the ...
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Comment
Hackney residents need not fear
Further to your article on 8 October (page 18), entitled “John Laing quits troubled Hackney estate scheme”, while John Laing has withdrawn from the regeneration scheme in Haggerston West & Kingsland, the council and London & Quadrant remain firmly committed to the project. The reason for leaving the scheme that ...