All articles by Denise Chevin – Page 6
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CommentState aid
So, is the industry about to enter a more enlightened era? That’s the idea behind this week’s launch of an industry–government manifesto for improving construction’s performance in several key areas, from sustainability in the ecological sense to sustainability in training and recruitment.
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CommentWhat happens in the second act?
After what has seemed like endless dithering on the part of the government, and endless lobbying campaigns by the interested parties, the reform of the 1996 Construction Act is finally on its way.
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CommentParadise postponed
You don’t hear much about Sir John Egan these days. Integrated teams, lean construction, innovation … all the great doctrines he set out in Rethinking Construction back in 1998 have faded with the years. It’s not hard to see why.
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CommentMarket testing sustainability
Is sustainability going to be the next casualty of the credit crunch? With houses recording their first annual fall for 12 years, and Tony Pidgley describing the crisis as worse than the nineties, it’s hard to imagine consumers squandering their angst on solar panels.
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CommentIn urgent need of repair
What a shabby week it’s been for construction. In fact, one of the shabbiest weeks in living memory.
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CommentSurvival of the fittest
At the start of the year we carried a comment piece from David Pretty, the former Barratt chief executive, detailing two scenarios that housebuilders would have in place in the run-up to the spring selling season.
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CommentAll your regs in one basket
Hallelujah. The government is finally taming the Building Regulations.
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NewsT5 helps us hold our heads high
Hot on the heels of the new St Pancras, Terminal 5 is another triumph for UK construction
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CommentThinking it through
The need to be sustainable is now as universally accepted as the need to wear a seat belt. But as Ryanair’s campaign advertising “1 million flights for 1p” illustrates, it’s one thing to accept the desirability of sustainable living, another to make the sacrifices to actually do it.
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CommentHow safe are the specialists?
Another well known family name looks like becoming history this week. In an echo of the famous sale of Laing to O’Rourke in 2002, Hills Electrical was taken over by one of its rivals for the nominal sum of a pound.
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CommentA done deal, but is it a good one?
Carillion boss John McDonough can’t be beaten for chutzpah.
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CommentIs Prince Charles right?
Prince Charles’ speech on new buildings in old places last week was not the bombshell lobbed by his “monstrous carbuncle” diatribe of 1984, which precipitated a nationwide reaction by planning authorities against modern architecture.
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CommentThat was then, this is now
So once the project team have finished sighing with relief, no doubt their chests will swell with pride: Terminal 5 has come in on time and to budget.
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CommentAre we gliding or plummeting?
“In 2008 it is likely that a less buoyant housing market will go hand in hand with slower growth in consumer spending. In the short run, that will slow economic activity, possibly quite sharply.”
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CommentIt’s yesterday once more
Sir John Egan must have felt a bit like Detective Inspector Sam Tyler from Life on Mars when he first encountered the 1998-era construction industry, filled as it was with firms dressed in metaphorical kipper ties and brown leather jackets who weren’t afraid to cut a few corners to get ...
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CommentPeering into the gloom
In an issue as celebratory as this one, it’s rather a shame that we have to acknowledge the elephant in the drawing room. But as we go into the new year there’s no ignoring the uncertainty that’s surrounding the economy in the wake of the credit crunch.