Opinion – Page 572

  • Comment

    Third time unlucky

    2004-07-30T00:00:00Z

    This is a successful appeal by the respondent, Kingston Upon Hull City Council, from the decision of the Court of Appeal reported in Legal Briefing No.8 of 2004. The applicant had worked for the respondent local authority as an environmental health officer and had been driven from his job by ...

  • Comment

    Hansom

    2004-07-30T00:00:00Z

    A heartwarming royal commemorative issue, in which urchins from the housebuilding industry meet Her Majesty and Diana's memory brings tears to the eyes

  • Comment

    The tyranny of taste

    2004-07-30T00:00:00Z

    The dead hand of totalitarian modernism should be prised from the shoulders of living architects: it was no more than a style among many others

  • Comment

    Counting all the costs

    2004-07-30T00:00:00Z

    In the issue of 16 July, your leader referred to “consistently reduced construction costs”, and Alistair McAlpine commented that “a cheap price and a silver tongue” were generally accepted as “an alternative to expertise”.

  • Comment

    A binding non-binding decision

    2004-07-30T00:00:00Z

    Tim Elliott (16 July, page 51) applauds the decision of His Honour Judge Thornton in William Verry Ltd vs North West London Communal Mikrah.

  • Comment

    Neanderthal Man alive and well

    2004-07-30T00:00:00Z

    I was rather surprised to read your comment “Neanderthal Man no longer roams the sites of the land, terrorising small contractors with the assistance of fine legal minds” (16 July, page 3). My job for the past 10 years has been to defend my employer (a subcontractor) against precisely that. ...

  • Comment

    A reader writes: The facts of death

    2004-07-30T00:00:00Z

    After our interview with the family of Patrick O’Sullivan, who was killed on the Wembley site, a reader gives us his experience of a fatality during a concrete pour

  • Comment

    Wonders & blunders

    2004-07-30T00:00:00Z

    Tony Bingham is left aesthetically stranded by the RAC control centre on the M6, but the Bilbao Guggenheim comes to the rescue

  • Comment

    Conspiracy uncovered

    2004-07-30T00:00:00Z

    Dominic Helps If you’re in any doubt about what constitutes collusive tendering, the Office of Fair Trading has just published a decision that makes it absolutely clear

  • Comment

    It’s a long, long road

    2004-07-30T00:00:00Z

    Tony Bingham Those canny Irish have put their £4bn roadbuilding programme on hold until they see what happens to the English experiment with design-and-build

  • Comment

    The pensions black hole

    2004-07-30T00:00:00Z

    Patrick Kennedy and Caoimhe O’Neill If you sign a contract with a firm that has an underfunded final salary pension scheme, it could drag you into the mire too

  • Comment

    This month Legal Aid

    2004-07-30T00:00:00Z

    Our experts explain the ins and outs of building insurance, outline the many ways an expert QS can resolve wrangles over costs, and look at who pays when a public sector client clashes with a private utility company over delays

  • Comment

    You animals..

    2004-07-30T00:00:00Z

    Welcome to Building’s annual league table of the 100 biggest UK contracting and housebuilding giants, ranked by turnover, pre-tax profit, operating margin and more besides.

  • Rudi Klein
    Comment

    You are the weakest link

    2004-07-23T00:00:00Z

    NHS Estates' Procure 21 is a model of how to run a modern supply-chain. Unfortunately, a system is only as good as the firms that operate it. Take this outfit for example …

  • Comment

    The battle of Twickenham

    2004-07-23T00:00:00Z

    The funny, bitter, heartwarming tale of six men who came together to work on a London pub and found themselves transformed into a band of brothers …

  • Hansom
    Comment

    Hansom

    2004-07-23T00:00:00Z

    More tales of woe and vengeance, with a guest appearance by Jean-Luc Picard as President Pringle and a soundtrack by the scaffolders …

  • Denise Chevin
    Comment

    Contract killing

    2004-07-23T00:00:00Z

    Nobody will be in the least critical of Montpellier’s decision to walk away from Oxford University’s medical research centre. Over the past few months, animal rights activists have subjected management, shareholders, staff and their families to vile intimidation, vandalism and fraud.

  • Comment

    First things last

    2004-07-23T00:00:00Z

    Why did the cost of the Scottish parliament rise from £40m to more than £400m? Simple. Builders were asked to start work before the designs had been settled

  • Comment

    Rethinking arbitration

    2004-07-23T00:00:00Z

    The unmitigated success of adjudication leads us logically to reassess the potential of a streamlined version of arbitration to deal with more complex cases

  • Ian Yule
    Comment

    Beware your friends

    2004-07-23T00:00:00Z

    If two firms snuggle up, and then one finds that the other is (metaphorically) picking its pockets, can it get a judge to intervene? The Court of Appeal had this to say …