Opinion – Page 571
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Comment
Protocol’s progress
The Society of Construction Law’s rules for handling delay can now be incorporated into your contract – with dramatic consequences for the programme
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CommentCompulsory purchases
Two legal textbooks have just been published, and if you’re in the business of fighting or resolving disputes, you simply have to have them on your shelf
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Comment
Exit the engineer
The ICE form has long required engineers to resolve ‘matters of dissatisfaction’. Well, that’s all over now, because the seventh edition has new rules
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Comment
The nuclear option
The flow of interim payments has come to a stop and it looks ominous. What to do? Wait for an adjudication – or go for broke with a winding-up petition?
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Comment
Quality is key
I would like to take this opportunity to respond to your invitation for views on whether or not the Quality Mark can be resurrected (2 July, page 15).
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Comment
Stuck in first gear
I read with interest your leader article “Assisted Suicide” and “Watts: BRE is on a precipice” (23 July, page 12) on the DTI’s proposal to end the practice of ringfencing money for construction research and development.
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Comment
Charity begins at home
No, I do not agree the industry should be funding migrant workers for skills training (30 July, page 15). Do British tradesmen get the same treatment if we work on the Continent? Maybe it’s about time Britain stopped being such a “bleeding heart” and actually concentrated on solving our own ...
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Comment
Ships that pass on the motorway
As a regular passer of the RAC control centres at Bristol and Walsall (30 July, page 34), perhaps someone could enlighten me about the obviously nautical inspiration in the designs. The centre at Bristol screams Noah’s Ark (when not attracting divine thunderbolts, causing the computer system to shut down!) and ...
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Comment
When will you pay me?
The plight of Spectrum, the fit-out contractor that called in the administrators last week, illustrates why passions are running so high on the subject of payment (see news).
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Comment
Divorced from reality
When Whitehall split responsibility for construction between departments, it was obvious things would get messy – but then the industry has always been misunderstood
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Comment
Twitch and its yours
There are many reasons why one side to a dispute might claim that there was no contract, but the courts will do their very best to prove them wrong
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Comment
Take cover
Horbury Building Systems Limited had erected ceilings within in a cinema complex. The ceiling to one of the cinemas collapsed, and the whole complex had been closed for several weeks. Clause 4.1 of the insurance policy said that Hampden Insurance would indemnify Horbury Building Systems “in respect of … ...
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CommentThe Butler test
Adjudicators, like prime ministers, rely on expert evidence to come to decisions. But what if they’re given duff information that reinforces their own bias?
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CommentMultiplex on the spot
The FA may have other things on its mind than the construction of Wembley, but news that the stadium is presently hosting a good old-fashioned firefight between sub and main contractors should give anyone left at Soho Square additional cause for concern.
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Comment
The Holyrood treatment
Cary Grant could have given a valuable lesson in construction procurement to the “client” for the Scottish parliament building (23 July, page 50) – or the client for any large or complex development, come to that.
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Comment
It’s just cement to be
With the introduction of the European Landfill Directive, the UK’s remediation industry must face the fact that it has to find an alternative to a dig-and-dump strategy for contaminated land (16 July, page 14).
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Comment
A fair point
I was reading the article “Beauty is but skin deep …” (18 June, pages 26-28) and noticed that you show a photograph of the Saga headquarters in Folkestone, Kent, to illustrate the leaky windows that it has been cursed with. I would just like to point out that the photograph ...
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Comment
Dear Tony ...
I think the “answer on a postcard” to Tony Bingham’s question of how to gather evidence of site disruptions at the time they occur (16 July, page 52) is to keep a site diary. A well-kept and detailed diary is invaluable to anyone having to prepare or determine claims for ...
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Comment
… or, perhaps, Dear Diary
The answer has to be site diaries maintained by all supervisory staff from trade supervisor upwards. There should be an item in the bill for them, their content specified in the spec and, for programmes using the Society of Construction Law protocol, a withholding of a percentage of the account ...