All Letters articles – Page 98
-
Comment
Peter the portly puss
Your readers may be interested to know that Peter Lobban, the chief executive of the Construction Industry Training Board has a salary of £214,775.
-
Comment
The last of the tradesmen
I started working as a joiner in the 1970s and you could say my age group (40-year-olds) were the last of the tradesmen to be brought through a real apprenticeship. This should have enabled us, now that some of us are in managerial positions, to pass on our expertise to ...
-
Comment
Phone a fraud squad
What the industry needs is a hotline to report bogus companies that the Inland Revenue actually takes notice of!
-
Comment
That sinking feeling
Andy Carter asks why the RAC buildings at Bristol and Walsall harbour a nautical theme (Letters, 13 August, page 28).
-
Comment
Paying for a faulty system
Last week’s editorial on construction’s payment problems (13 August, page 3) leads one to the conclusion that when the chips were down the provisions of the Construction Act were found to be ineffective.
-
Comment
Credit where it’s due
It is a great disappointment to find that such an excellent article dealing with the Hyde Housing Association prefabricated flat development (6 August, page 38) failed to mention the approved inspector for Building Regulations or the important role played by the staff of our central London office.
-
Comment
Safety’s come a long way
There has probably been more progress in the area of improvements in construction site safety and attitudes to training over the past 18 months than at any time in recent years.
-
Comment
Name that tree
To the timber industry, the names of timber, wood, hardwood and softwood are fundamental.
-
Comment
Before BUMA
You state that the Hyde Housing Association scheme in south London by Polish company BUMA, which cost £1260/m2, “brings prefabrication within Housing Corporation budgets for the first time” (23 July, page 12).
-
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 ...
-
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).
-
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.
-
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 ...
-
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.
-
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 ...
-
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 ...
-
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 ...
-
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).
-
Comment
A binding non-binding decision
Tim Elliott (16 July, page 51) applauds the decision of His Honour Judge Thornton in William Verry Ltd vs North West London Communal Mikrah.