All Letters articles – Page 94
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Comment
The price of CSCS
I read with amazement that the CSCS scheme is £5m in the red (3 December, page 9).
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Comment
Mr BTEC responds
As a course director (“Mr BTEC”) at the College of West Anglia in Norfolk, I would like to reassure readers that Della Madgwick’s unfortunate experience, recounted in her letter of 3 December, need not be universal.
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Comment
The name’s Bond … retention bond
A number of British Constructional Steelwork Association members may choose to give bonds in place of accepting cash retention (26 November, page 63), but I hope you don’t think I’m being too pedantic if I remind you that this is no longer a BCSA matter but one for individual companies.
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Comment
Jack’s blunder
Jack Pringle’s comments (3 December, page 34) demonstrate how out of touch with reality the RIBA remains in 2004, with its obsession for style before function.
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Comment
All in the forecast
Further to Malcolm Taylor’s letter (10 December, page 29), it may well be puzzling that the services element of a building does not receive the same level of prescriptive design as the architectural elements.
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Comment
Perfect 10 (well, almost)
I was interested to read Rudi Klein’s recent article about the benefits of single project insurance to the construction industry (26 November, page 51).
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CommentWhat was going on there then?
Two weeks ago, we published this photo from the days when architectural models were hand-carved out of wood and nothing said steely determination quite like a well-appointed pipe. We asked you to provide as much information as you could about what was going on and such was the response that ...
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Comment
It’s not either/or
The article on “new urbanism” (26 November, page 41) pitted two extreme and opposing views of architects. On the one hand, we are asked to believe that a bunch of icon-obsessed egos is working in the interests of self-promotion rather than for the benefit of our towns and cities; on ...
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Comment
CSCS is working
As the employers’ side of the CSCS board, Building’s news article on 3 December dismays us (“Unions attack CITB over £5m deficit in CSCS scheme”, page 9). It is worth remembering that the “Qualifying the Workforce” initiative, led by employers with enthusiastic support from the unions, has resulted in more ...
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Comment
Chiding Charlie
In your article “Whitehall gets a royal warning over fast-track housebuilding” (26 November, page 16), Prince Charles is quoted as saying: “The fast building movement will strangle the world unless we look at diversity above mass production.” Whoever is supplying the prince with information about the design flexibility of homes ...
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Comment
House of cards
I read with some amusement about the power struggle between CSCS and the CITB (26 November, page 24).The views of John Smith more than adequately reflect the real world. Despite the willingness of many legitimate contractors and specialist contractors to apply the scheme, the whole thing will degenerate into even ...
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Comment
Jobs for the boys
I always read with interest your articles bemoaning the lack of women in the industry. Like Helen Sanders (26 November, page 36), I don’t always agree with this philosophy.Setting my rather cynical opinion aside and working under the assumption that construction does need more women to help fill the skills ...
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Comment
Backing the bill
Despite objections from certain camps, government backing for more stringent punishments in order to reduce the level of workplace death and injury (“Queen’s speech heralds corporate manslaughter bill”, 26 November, page 15) is largely matched by the corporate world’s level of concern.
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Comment
Costing the ‘black art’
Although Chris Haley may well be right in pushing for greater QS involvement in costing services, he misses a vital point (26 November, page 38). A fundamental reason why the costing of services is so poor is that the “trade” traditionally designs a large part of the services elements in ...
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Comment
UK shares Europe’s guilt
As reported in Building (19 November, page 15), Alan Wood has exposed the unfair practices that European governments use to exclude British companies from their public sector contracts.
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Comment
A BTEC in boredom
Having enjoyed a reasonably successful career in construction and having a 16-year-old son with the prospect of 10 good GCSEs and no particular idea what he wants to do, I persuaded him to apply for a BTEC in construction.
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Comment
A tricky treaty
Greg Trickey misunderstands the European Union constitution (12 November, page 37), the legal threat of which will be no greater to the UK’s “royal” chartered bodies than to the Crown Prosecution Service, the Royal Mail or indeed the royal family itself.
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Comment
Target practice
In the article “Fatality rate overshadows HSE’s healthy living plan” (15 November, page 17), some confusion crept in, which resulted in the views I expressed being misrepresented.