All Analysis articles – Page 22
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Features
The path to power
News analysis: The government has willed the creation of the first nuclear reactors since 1995, but to get them it needs to erect a new planning system, overcome opposition from a host of enemies – some within the construction industry – and work out a way to store toxic waste ...
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Features
The pool that (nearly) sank its architect
In 1996, one of Britain’s hottest young designers was given a £7m leisure centre project in north-east London. Over the next 11 years, it mutated into a £45m disaster that cost him his London office, his marriage and £250,000 of his own money.
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Features
A dynasty divided
Keith Miller thinks his row with cousin James over shares in the Miller Group can be sorted out over dinner. However, a history of friction between the two suggests it is more likely to end in a food fight.
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Features
Interview: John Callcutt
John Callcutt’s review of the housebuilding industry has been eagerly awaited, not least because everyone is wondering what else there is to say about it. Well, it turns out there’s plenty – just don’t expect any quick-fix solutions.
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Features
Eco-towns analysed
News analysis: Brown’s Big Idea on becoming prime minister was to build 10 towns on 10 new sites. But it seems developers are using the eco-towns to add spoilers, fog lamps and go-faster stripes to schemes that have already been rejected.
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Features
Excellent BREEAM rating at school
Miller Construction achieved green rating at Hagley Haybridge High School in Worcestershire.
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Features
Giving ground
A Competition Commission report has raised the prospect of supermarkets being forced to sell off their landbanks to rival stores. Joey Gardiner looks at whether this will mean a new wave of superstores outside Britain’s towns and cities
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Features
Can Ken untangle the tube?
Transport for London’s bid to take over the demoralised Metronet consortium is virtually a done deal. But what happens then? Katie Puckett and Stuart Macdonald report on the task awaiting the London mayor and his team
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Features
The planning gain supplement is dead. Long live the roof tax?
Developers have won a famous battle with the government over the introduction of the PGS. But as infrastructure still has to be paid for, it looks like we’ll be moving to a system based on the Milton Keynes roof tax. David Parsley asks what this means
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Features
Boom over?
Business might well be ballooning for the UK’s top 250 consultants, as our cover suggests, but the global credit crunch has led some well-informed voices to predict a slide in demand, particularly in the London commercial market. Stephen Kennett looks at whether they’re right
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Features
You can't have it all
Barratt chief executive Mark Clare is adamant that the government’s targets for fewer carbon emissions and more homes are contradictory. He tells Sarah Richardson why
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Features
When will they ever learn?
The government is trying to renew 3,500 schools in 15 years using teams of confused officials, increasingly resentful contractors and a system that combines surreal bureaucracy with huge wastes in time and money. Eleanor Goodman and Katie Puckett explain why Building Schools for the Future continues to underachieve
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Features
Crossrail starts here
Eighteen years after the idea of a rail line running east to west through London was mooted, all that has actually been done is to dig this large hole. But, as Gordon Brown prepares to announce a funding strategy in his conference speech next week, that may be about to ...
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Features
The men who got left behind
Increased public sector spending was supposed to be great news for construction firms. But, according to a survey released this week, these local contractors have missed out on the bonanza. Katie Puckett finds out why the growth of framework agreements is threatening the industry’s smaller businesses
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Features
Can the Olympics save their jobs?
Furniture supplier Remploy needs to save £227m and is planning to shut 32 of its factories – a move that the TUC says would spell disaster for its largely disabled workforce. Now there’s hope that orders for seating for Olympic venues could provide a lifeline.
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Features
Housebuilders or planners - who should set sustainability targets?
An almighty row has been brewing between local authorities, who want to set their own sustainability targets, and developers who claim this is causing chaos. The two met last Tuesday to thrash out their differences...
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Features
Stewart McColl: I want my company back
When SMC Group shares dived from 196p to 16p in just eight months, chief executive Stewart McColl took the rap and left the company he’d founded. But as talks begin on a possible merger between SMC and Aukett, word is out that he could soon be making a comeback.
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Features
Batten down the hatches
Hull council wants to make flood resistance a condition of planning permission, but is it possible to build a house capable of resisting the recent freakish weather? And would anybody buy one?