Month in numbers

2

The percentage of renewable energy that the Olympic Village will provide, somewhat short of mayor Ken Livingstone’s 10% target set in the London Plan.

The reason for the shortfall is that the location of the Olympic Village was moved to be within Westfield’s Stratford City scheme, for which planning permission was submitted in April 2003, before the 10% target was set. Newham council may be able to wrestle a higher percentage from the developer as it submitted a revised planning application in May this year.

In 2004 Merton Borough Council in London was the first to introduce a renewable energy planning policy, stating that any proposed development over 1,000 m2 should use equipment such as photovoltaic panels or solar water heaters to deliver 10% of the occupants’ energy needs. Other councils are now following suit.

25

Percentage of all new homes which will be timber by 2008, according to the UK Timber Frame Association. The Association says timber frame accounted for 20% of all new housing in 2005, up from 17% in 2004, the biggest single jump it has recorded.

Timber frame housing accounted for about 58% of new UK social housing and almost 16% of new private housing in 2005. In Scotland, a more mature market for timber frame, 72% of social housing and 73% of private new homes are timber frame.

The greatest growth in timber frame usage was in medium-rise developments and detached homes: 41.5% of housing over two storeys is now timber frame, compared with 37% in 2004, reflecting the UK trend away from detached and low-level housing towards more flats. The biggest growth was in London and the south east.

165

The number of Laing O’Rourke staff dismissed this year for drug taking. This equates to 10% of those tested. According to the contractor’s Human Capital Report of the 1,511 people tested, 124 had used cannabis, 41 cocaine and 25 both.

Laing O’Rourke is setting the agenda with the publication of this report, which includes sections on the make-up of its employees, recruitment, retention, development and health and safety. Such reports are new, not just in construction, but in business generally.

Chairman Ray O’Rourke says in the report: “We are among countless organisations who claim that our employees are our most important asset. To substantiate our claim, we ascribe to the principles and recommendations – today’s best practice – on valuing people and human resource investment within our organisation.”

2,019

The number of Polish voiceovers requested by workers sitting the health and safety test for a CSCS (Construction Skills Certification Scheme) card between August 2005 and August 2006. This equates to 0.5% of the 400,000 people who sat the test during that period.

CM asked CITB ConstructionSkills for a breakdown of those who sat the test and requested a voiceover in a foreign language. Polish was the most common request, followed by Russian (713), Punjabi (413), Bulgarian (366) and Portuguese (363). CITB-ConstructionSkills has also introduced voiceovers in Romanian, German, Lithuanian and Welsh.

With the Major Contractors’ Group’s “no card, no entry” policy coming into force in October, it will be interesting to see what happens to these figures. We’ll be looking at them again in six months.

100,000

The cost, in pounds, of a new bronze statue, erected to both commemorate building workers killed on site, and to celebrate those still working. UCATT commissioned the 300kg work from sculptor Alan Wilson. The inscription on the 9ft high builder reads: “For the thousands of building workers who have lost their lives at work, we commemorate you. For the thousands of building workers who are today building and rebuilding towns and cities across the UK, we celebrate you.”

London mayor Ken Livingstone and UCATT’s general secretary Alan Ritchie unveiled the monument in October in Tower Hill, near the Tower of London. Each year on 28 April, Workers’ Memorial Day, wreaths will be laid by the statue. There were 59 deaths on construction sites last year.