Opinion – Page 356
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Comment
Halifax sees house prices up 3% from the bottom
The latest figures from Halifax put the price of an average house (not seasonally adjusted) up by 3% on the low they reached in March this year and broadly on a par with the level at the end of last year.This will no doubt help keep alive the hopes that ...
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CommentLittle Britain diary: Dressed to impress
Oilskins and black-tie outfits packed, the Weightmans team can't wait for the race – so they can get to the parties in good time
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Comment
An uphill road to recovery
Despite welcome news that the UK construction sector is contracting at a slower pace, the industry is still struggling. August saw a reduction in the pace of deterioration. While reduced activity was again largely attributed to dampened demand for new orders, there are a number of issues challenging the sector. ...
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CommentBack to schools: Building in a recession
Question one. How can we keep spending billions on school building while struggling with the biggest crisis in our public finances since the war?
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Comment
Output figures show continued fall in cash flowing into construction
At first sight the latest construction output figures provide some relief. The fall in output in the second quarter of the year estimated to be just 0.5% and there was a slight rise in the output of new work measured in constant prices.But then it is always worth taking a ...
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CommentKeeping on keeping on: Sir Michael Latham on training
Building facilities for the wider education sector is one thing, but construction also has to make sure it keeps its own training system up to scratch
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CommentWonders & blunders with Estelle Morris
Estelle Morris gives top marks to a much-improved Birmingham primary school, but thinks the designers of the Institute of Education deserve a ticking off
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CommentHansom super-size this
There’s nothing wrong with excess, whether taking a prodigious number of lunches or hundreds of trips abroad or lining your wall with mobile phones – but working at the weekend? That’s just too much
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Comment
Getting the message across
I have sympathy with much of the sentiment in Tony Bingham’s article on cover pricing (28 August, page 42)
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CommentThe root of the problem
I am writing in regard to your article “Giant fly swats could suck up motorway fumes” (27 August)
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Comment
Fighting solves nothing
Much has been said and written recently on the expressed intention of some employers, in both the public and private sectors, to abandon framework agreements in favour of lowest price
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Comment
A better way
I was very interested to read the framework discussion between Don Ward and Stan Hornagold (7 August, page 32)
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Comment
Nobody’s perfect
Arguments against frameworks – here and elsewhere – seem to pick up on a few cases of bad procurement and apply these as true across all frameworks
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Comment
Sad state of affairs
With regards to the letter by KD Overment in your issue of 31 July (page 22), I have been involved in many projects for university buildings and find the attitude of the estates departments often depressing
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CommentIt happened in Hertfordshire
Back in the fifties, one council changed the way everybody built schools. And the buildings it created can now be born again as models of sustainability
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Comment
A removeable feast: how long will schools funding last?
The education sector is one of the areas to have remained buoyant during the recession. Capital funding has increased fourfold since 1997/98, putting it at just over £4.1bn. Altogether, the education sector is providing £6bn a year for construction through public funding and indirectly through the PFI. These workloads are ...
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Comment
Back to schools: building in a recession
Question one. How can we keep spending billions on school building while struggling with the biggest crisis in our public finances since the war? Not easy, is it? Even a grade A* economics student would struggle with this one.Not many of us are putting our hands up and offering ...
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Comment
CIPS: construction still the sick man of the UK economy
There is nothing remarkable about the latest CIPS construction survey other than the comments, which are somewhat more guarded than those that accompanied last month's data.It found workload in the industry still falling on its measure which registered 47.7 in August against a no change mark of 50.0. This compares ...