All Leader articles 鈥� Page 45
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A bit of strategic thinking
Meet Peter Rogers, the new Mr Construction. Like his predecessor Sir John Egan, he is a top client and, although not exactly one of Tony's cronies, he's in the New Labour loop. But that's where the similarity ends. Egan, who made his name at Jaguar, was always the outsider; Rogers ...
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We're sadder, but are we wiser?
So, has the worst building collapse in history changed construction? Everyone, including this magazine, seemed to think so in the aftermath of 11 September. As Sainsbury's cancelled its twin 40-storey towers in London, we suggested that skyscrapers would lose their mystique, and that the generational shift from building outwards to ...
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You had to be there
It is easy to mock RIBA president Paul Hyett for rolling up in Johannesburg this week (pages 18-19). The third earth summit has "fiasco" written all over it: 60,000 dignitaries are trying to save the planet in two weeks, thereby expending more greenhouse gases than Africa produces in a year. ...
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Techno-toys r us
The evolution of home technology holds the promise that Le Corbusier's dictum, "the home is a machine for living in", will be less of a design philosophy and more of a literal reality.
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The HSE's masterstroke
When Kier and Wates were hauled up before the beak last month, it was easy to conclude that the basis of the Health and Safety Executive's safety drive was browbeating illustrious contractors. But the shock tactic of raiding London sites gave a misleading impression. The HSE doesn't just want to ...
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Making the desert boom
Who'd have pinpointed the Gulf as the venue for the next global construction bonanza? With an assault on Iraq looming and the revival of Islamic fundamentalism, there wouldn't appear, on the face of it, to be much of a market for Western-style hotels, malls and casinos. But that is precisely ...
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A lesson to us allThe government finally admitted this week that vocational training needed an overhaul. Skills minister Ivan Lewis said employers needed tailor-made training schemes to meet skills shortages, and pledged an overhaul of post-16 education. His comments just happened to coincide with government body the Adult Learning Inspectorate's ...
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Gateway to salvation
The government has finally acted to ease the South-east's crippling housing shortage.
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Builders under fire
Will they never learn? A government-backed investigation has uncovered evidence that shoddy workmanship is exposing buildings 鈥� particularly those constructed using timber frame 鈥� to increased fire risks (pages 26-29). Experts are concerned that failure to properly install plasterboard drylining and fire protection is allowing fire to spread uncontrolled through ...
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Architecture without tears
In that holy trinity of any building project 鈥� cost, time and quality 鈥� it is quality that causes the longest lasting headaches. Once a building is completed and worries over cost and time have subsided, it is quality, or the lack of it, that the client, facilities manager and ...
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Desperately seeking Susans
The case of Louise Barton, the latest City high-flyer to sue her employer for discrimination, is a reminder of construction's perennial prejudices. With a booming industry fretting over labour shortages, the debate has centred on whether to assimilate foreign labour or retrain over-25s 鈥� mostly men, one suspects. Yet women, ...
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Is that the time?
Labour鈥檚 chance to deliver its 拢19bn investment in housing, schools, hospitals and transport is rapidly evaporating. Whitehall officials are muttering that without spectacular acceleration in the rate of spending, only a fraction of the planned facilities will be open when Tony Blair goes to the polls in 2005-6. The first ...
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An illegal dilemma
It was apposite that construction minister Brian Wilson should make immigration the main subject of his first 好色先生TV column (page 31). The issue is one of the most vexatious facing his government 鈥� the latest furore erupted last week when David Blunkett suggested educating the children of asylum seekers in ...
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Ethics are not optional
A housebuilder, now sadly deceased, once recounted the tale of how he won permission for luxury flats in Europe by agreeing to sponsor the local football team and paying for the mayor and his family to stay at The Ritz for a month. That was 20 years ago, but international ...
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Another ruddy shake-up
Tony Blair's unexpectedly sweeping reshuffle raises as many questions for construction as it answers (pages 22-23). Few will bemoan Stephen Byers' departure, and Alistair Darling has said that he's not going to "tear up" the 10-year transport plan. But then he was drawn into an ugly spat with Downing Street ...
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Anatomy of a fiasco
As the World Cup kicks off in the beautiful (and completed) arenas of Japan and South Korea, our attention is again on England鈥檚 beautiful (but unstarted) stadium in Wembley. Three consultants鈥� reports presented to MPs last week cast new light on the cost of the troubled project and the controversial ...
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Making sense of Potters Bar
We know what caused the Potters Bar rail crash, but we still don't know who. Jarvis, which is responsible for the track, claims to have evidence that the faulty points were sabotaged 鈥� a possibility highlighted in 好色先生TV last week, despite being dismissed by rail experts. Investigators seem adamant that ...
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Variety the great spice
The simple function of registered social landlords is to provide decent homes for those in greatest need. The approaches that housing associations are adopting as they struggle to meet those needs, particularly in the South, are becoming ever more varied and innovative, as this issue of Homes recognises. Network Housing ...
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The industry’s Beckenbauer
Mott MacDonald鈥檚 merger with Franklin + Andrews, exclusively revealed in 好色先生TV last week, reopens the debate about the future of QSs. Martin Bishop, Franklin + Andrews鈥� chairman, thinks copycat mergers are likely, as is another round of soul searching for QSs (page 20). Bishop saw no future in independence, and ...
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Land and freedom
How far should Whitehall intervene in the housing crisis? Last week's disclosures that the House Builders Federation is lobbying Downing Street to get more land for homes and that Lord Falconer is planning "prefabs for key workers" (see news) has polarised opinion. Interventionists argue that the shortage of homes for ...