Construction National

There’s a PR offensive going on, despite continuing woes

There is still little to cheer in the housing sector, with both RICS and the NHBC issuing figures in the past week on third quarter statistics. The NHBC reported a fall in registrations for the quarter from last year in both the private and public sectors. The public sector saw a fall of only 5% from last year, but with the sector flat on its back there is little left to cut. The private sector had been a little more positive, but that optimism has evaporated.

The RICS, too, reported a continuing decline in both private and public sectors, with a net 11% of surveyors reporting a decline in public-sector workload over the period compared to 4% in the private sector.

Read more: There’s a PR offensive going on, despite continuing woes

How much open space do you need in a public building? Enough, it seems, to save a concrete plant

I commented at some length recently (5 July) about the announcement of the Priority Schools Building Programme, the £2bn scheme to keep at least some schools functioning which replaced the Building Schools for the Future programme aimed at replacing all secondary schools.

The most recent news about the scheme, to be found elsewhere on the Construction National site, is that the original cost of the scheme, which was to be £2.4bn of which £2bn would be via a Private Finance Initiative, is to be reduced by nearly £700m.

The savings, from the PFI part of the programme, will be made by applying a new design standard resulting in a review of the cost per square metre. According to the Education Funding Agency, that would not result in "smaller classrooms becoming more acceptable".

Read more: How much open space do you need in a public building? Enough, it seems, to save a concrete plant

London’s triumph begets Rio contracts; but does Whitehall know what it’s doing on procurement?

Much emphasis in the construction news of the past week or so has been on building procurement in the public sector. First, on 10 September the All Party Parliamentary Group for Excellence in Public Building – a snappy title, you must agree – published its report calling for a "procurement revolution" to deliver better value for money in public sector construction projects.

It cited the Olympic Delivery Authority for London 2012 as a shining example of how it's done. This week the PM revealed during a visit to Brazil (one of the downsides of hosting the next Games) that many of the people and companies involved in delivering that infrastructure project have been engaged by the Rio organisers to perform the same task next time around.

Read more: London’s triumph begets Rio contracts; but does Whitehall know what it’s doing on procurement?

Bigging up extensions and putting down councils, and what has happened to Mr Prisk?

So David Cameron and Nick Clegg are going to get Britain building again. Cameron said his Government is serious about rolling its sleeves up and doing all it can to kick-start the economy. So they came together to announce...the relaxation of planning rules on extensions! That is great news for people who build extensions, of course – provided that their prospective customers, freed from the jack-booted oppression of petty minded officialdom in town halls across the country, can actually afford to build them.

To be fair, there are some things that will boost housebuilding. The extension of the FirstBuy scheme is to be welcomed, even if it only applies to new builds. There are elements, however, that seem to display a desire to hand public money to private developers: the mooted Infrastructure (Financial Assistance) Bill, for instance, that will guarantee "the debt of housing associations and private-sector developers" (my emphasis).

Read more: Bigging up extensions and putting down councils, and what has happened to Mr Prisk?