More positive signs in the construction industry last week included house builder Taylor Wimpey reporting ‘continued stability’ in the UK housing market since April. Their order books are up 73 per cent from the low mark at the end of 2008, which is also encouraging but we still have potential problems from rising unemployment. Taylor Wimpey plan to bring more houses to market during the second half of the year and note that “opportunities are starting to emerge to purchase good quality land at prices that should be value creating for Taylor Wimpey”. Read the rest of this entry »

Prince Charles managed to make the building industry headlines twice this week. First there was news that plans for a GBP1 billion housing development at the site of the old Chelsea Barracks has been withdrawn. This controversial Richard Rogers design was heavily criticised by Prince Charles earlier this year. The site owner and developer Project Blue are now in wide-ranging discussions, including with ‘The Prince’s Foundation for the Built Environment’, to see if they can come up with another cunning plan that meets with royal approval. Read the rest of this entry »

We begin this weeks selection of industry news with a report from Capita Symonds who have won the first contract to be awarded via the Crossrail Design Consultant Framework. Crossrail will be the largest transport scheme in London and the South East for 50 years, as well as being the biggest construction project in Europe. It includes a 118 km rail link between Maidenhead and Heathrow in the west out to Shenfield and Abbey Wood in London’s east end. At the height of construction it is estimated that around 14,000 people will be employed on the project worth around GBP15.9bn. Read the rest of this entry »

The decline in construction is ’slowing’. The Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors found the fall in construction workloads, now in its fourth quarter, was less steep. Though the improvement was most noticeable in non-housing and infrastructure projects, the Federation of Master Builders think that there is definite ‘deceleration’, which means we are perhaps reaching the bottom of the recession even in the housing sector. This is also supported NHBC’s latest statistics indicating the decline in UK house-building is stabilising, with this year’s first quarter bringing the first quarter-on-quarter rise in applications to start new homes in almost two years. Read the rest of this entry »

Last week I was at the House of Commons in the company of Ed Miliband, Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change who was speaking at the special Parliamentary launch of The Big Green Home, a major new initiative by the National Home Home Improvement Council (NHIC) and British Gas to move UK’s existing housing stock towards low carbon emissions and water conservation. Read the rest of this entry »

Lord Mandelson, the UK Business Secretary, speaking at a CBI event last week, said that recession is a psychological as well as economic event. He was arguing against Tory ‘doom and austerity’ talk saying that a bit of positive thinking could make a difference. It maybe an explanation of why Gordon Brown is being forced to smile in such a bizarre fashion as he tries to radiate this Mandleson optimism. Read the rest of this entry »

I feel obliged to make some comment on last weeks UK Budget, not least because I had feedback from dozens of companies and trade organisations in the 24 hours after the Chancellors announcement. Most of these made their way onto the Buildingtalk website. Read the rest of this entry »