Arguably, one of the most important changes in recent history to construction standards comes into effect on 31 March 2010. The introduction "Eurocodes" will see The British Standards Institution (BSI) withdraw 54 British Standards for the design of buildings and civil engineering structures. Detailed overviews of the codes can be found in the sources section at the bottom of this article.
The Eurocodes will form a suite of unilateral European standards which cover the fundamentals of structural design. Included within the codes, are specific guidelines for the design of aluminum and masonry structures, concrete, composite steel and concrete, steel, timber, actions on structures, the design of structures to withstand earthquakes and geotechnical design. Consequently, these codes will have an immediate and far reaching effects on the UK construction industry.
Many leading engineers view them as the most technologically advanced standards in the world, which will provide a set of principles which offer far more versatility than previous standards. Their implementation across the European Union, will deliver a unified approach to design, whilst at the same time, will also accommodate the application of country specific construction requirements such as earthquake resistance, and climatic variations such as wind loads. Furthermore, many hope that Eurocodes will also catalyse easier access to the construction market.
In the UK, Eurocodes will be incorporated into Public Contracts Regulations, which currently determine the necessary standards for public buildings and structural projects. Many analysts have voiced concern over the delay in amending the Building Regulations Approved Document A, which will not include reference to the Eurocodes until 2013. However, the Department of Communities and Local Government (DCLG) has addressed the matter in a circular letter issued to Building Control Offices, in which it stated that "we would not expect this rescheduling [of the Building Regulations Approved Document A] to affect or deter the take up of the new national standards" (i.e. the Eurocodes).
Mike Low, Director, BSI Standards commented on the impending change: "The Eurocodes have evolved over 20 years, and because British engineers and BSI have played a key role in their development, I am confident that they will both strengthen the professions in the industry as well as our delivery of quality construction. Eurocodes will also provide an excellent foundation for developing international leadership here in the UK in creating the Smart & Sustainable Built Environment."
The BSI, along with affilliate key professional and trade associations, is organising a range of activities and events to smooth out the transition from the old British Standards to the new Eurocodes. Further details, including FAQs on the transition, are available from www.eurocodes.co.u, www.bsigroup.com/eurocodes and www.eurocodes.jrc.ec.europa.eu/.
Sources:
Highways Agency's involvement in the implementation of Eurocodes: Link | eurocode-resources.com: Link | Decoding the Eurocodes: Link | Department of Communities and Local Government (DCLG) - Implementation of Structural Eurocodes in the UK: PDF
Friday, 26 March 2010
Wednesday, 10 March 2010
£83 million for Phase 2 of Kickstart Housing Regeneration Poject
Housing Minister John Healey, has announced that £83 million of recently secured funding will enable work to restart on the construction of over 5,500 new homes, which had previously been stalled by the recession.
The Department for Communities and Local Government announced the initial batch of funding allocations for the next round of its Kickstart programme. This will allow work on previosuly mothballed key projects to recommence. This is a positive sign of recovery for builders and planner alike.
Details of the 87 projects have been uploaded to Bing mapping service (free). This provides an rough guide of the location and a brief snippet about the individual projects. This is all set out onto an interactive map (click here).
A map of the first round of allocations from Kickstart is also available here.
The West Midlands, has done particularly well, and 16 schemes will receive funding, making it the region with the greatest number of successful projects. Conversely, in the North-East, only two schemes will receive funding from Kickstart’s second round, making it the region with the least successful projects.
Elsewhere, housebuilder Morris Homes will receive £768,000 of funding to build 69 homes on a former college site near to Pride Park football ground in Derby. Meanwhile, Housebuilder Barratt, will receive £1.1 million of funding to build 50 affordable homes in Stockton-on-Tees.
Whilst the provision of funding is undoubtedly a positive sign, which should go some way to correcting the imbalance between supply and demand, it remains to be seen whether the Kickstart initiative can learn from the first phase's failings.
Last year it was reported almost half of the housing schemes which received funding in the first round of the Kickstart scheme had previously been rated "poor" by design watchdog the Commission for Architecture and the Built Environment.
HCA's review of Kickstart round 1 - PDF (75 KB)
A summary of approved schemes by region - PDF (62 KB)
The Department for Communities and Local Government announced the initial batch of funding allocations for the next round of its Kickstart programme. This will allow work on previosuly mothballed key projects to recommence. This is a positive sign of recovery for builders and planner alike.
Details of the 87 projects have been uploaded to Bing mapping service (free). This provides an rough guide of the location and a brief snippet about the individual projects. This is all set out onto an interactive map (click here).
A map of the first round of allocations from Kickstart is also available here.
The West Midlands, has done particularly well, and 16 schemes will receive funding, making it the region with the greatest number of successful projects. Conversely, in the North-East, only two schemes will receive funding from Kickstart’s second round, making it the region with the least successful projects.
Elsewhere, housebuilder Morris Homes will receive £768,000 of funding to build 69 homes on a former college site near to Pride Park football ground in Derby. Meanwhile, Housebuilder Barratt, will receive £1.1 million of funding to build 50 affordable homes in Stockton-on-Tees.
Whilst the provision of funding is undoubtedly a positive sign, which should go some way to correcting the imbalance between supply and demand, it remains to be seen whether the Kickstart initiative can learn from the first phase's failings.
Last year it was reported almost half of the housing schemes which received funding in the first round of the Kickstart scheme had previously been rated "poor" by design watchdog the Commission for Architecture and the Built Environment.
HCA's review of Kickstart round 1 - PDF (75 KB)
A summary of approved schemes by region - PDF (62 KB)
Tuesday, 2 March 2010
The Pay As You Save - Eco Loans
Government plans for "green loans" to help home owners make their homes more energy efficient by installing technology such as insulation and solar panels were announced by the Energy and Climate Change Secretary Ed Miliband.
The Warm Homes, Greener Homes scheme will see the loans tied to the house where the eco-measures are applied, so they can be repaid over a long enough period that the savings on energy costs outweigh the payback instalments.
The "Pay As You Save" (catchy?!) programme aims to ease people past the financial barriers - such as high upfront costs - faced by people trying to make their homes energy efficient and more greener.
It forms a key part of the government's strategy to cut greenhouse gas emissions from housing by 29% by 2020. With around a quarter of UK emissions originating from energy used in homes, this is a crucial target. The Government says, that the scheme will also reduce energy bills for householders and boost jobs.
Some 65,000 jobs could be supported by the green homes industry by 2020, ranging from skilled installation and manufacturing of technology including small scale renewables, to providing advice on home and business energy strategies. In the short term, householders should see reduced energy bills. Installation measures such as solid wall insulation, may net energy cost savings in the region of £380 a year!
The strategy will be implemented in three stages:
- To insulate 6 million homes by the end of 2011
- To have insulated all practical lofts and cavity walls by 2015
- To have offered up to 7 million eco-upgrades by 2020
To promote the scheme at the local level, an additional £2.5 million will go to establishing a network of lived-in green show homes across the UK, to demonstrate to people what a refurbished home is like, and what technologies are available to improve houses.
Ed Miliband said: "The Warm Homes, Greener Homes strategy will remove the deterrent of upfront costs and reduce the hassle of moving to greener living."
"Making homes more energy-efficient will help protect people from upward pressure on bills, tackle climate change and make us less reliant on imported energy."
"New 'pay as you save' green finance, a new alliance between energy companies and local authorities to help people in their communities, as well as moves to encourage landlords to stop ignoring energy wastage in their properties, will help deliver the radical transformation that's necessary."
A cynical observer might view this initiative as simply more electioneering, in the run up to the general election. Another dampener on proceedings is the context in which this announcement is made; the UK economy is in a dire state, and thus the task of persuading home owners to take out yet more debt is an incredibly difficult prospect.
Useful Links:
Department of Energy and Climate Change (Docs: 1 | 2 )
The Guardian - Are we really going to let ourselves be duped into this solar panel rip-off?
The Independent - Government plans 'green loans' to make homes more efficient
Persimmon sees signs of improvement
Persimmon back in black
Persimmon, the housebuilder, reported a return to full-year pre-tax profit, helped by a one-off gain from the revaluation of its land values.
Persimmon, the UK's largest housebuilder by market value, plans to create 90 new sites after trading conditions showed further signs of improvement. Some of the sites will be facilitated by Government grant funding for affordable homes.
Persimmon reported a 7% rise in sales since the beginning of 2010 and said the sales rate per site was up by a fifth due to the company operating from fewer locations than a year earlier.
Annual sales fell to £1.42bn in 2009, compared with £1.76bn a year earlier.
However, the company generated a pre-tax profit of £77.7m, compared with a £780m loss in 2008, thanks in large part to a write-up of £74.8m based on a re-evaluation of the value of its land assets.
The company, which is one of the less indebted UK housebuilders, generated £356.8m of free cash flow in 2009, compared with £239.2m in the previous year.
This helped it to reduce net borrowings from £600.7m in 2008 to £267.5m last year, easily within the company’s debt facilities of £1bn, arranged in March last year.
Persimmon also opened 90 new sites during the year, leaving it with land holdings of 60,454 plots at the end of 2009, which according to current build rates should provide six years’ supply.
John White, chairman, said: “Our cash generation and cost control have placed the business in a strong position both operationally and financially for a recovering market.
“Prices have held firm since the beginning of the year and we remain focused on improving our operating margins and to profitably grow the business.”
However, the company added: "It is too early to make a precise forecast about the housing market, particularly in an election year, and we will remain cautious in our investment decisions."
The company reiterated its previous announcement that it does not intend to pay a dividend for 2009, following its strategy of conserving cash in the business to strengthen the balance sheet.
Persimmon shares, which have risen more than 18 per cent in the last year, rose 6.9p or 1.7 per cent in early trading on Tuesday to 407½p.
(Source)
Persimmon, the housebuilder, reported a return to full-year pre-tax profit, helped by a one-off gain from the revaluation of its land values.
Persimmon, the UK's largest housebuilder by market value, plans to create 90 new sites after trading conditions showed further signs of improvement. Some of the sites will be facilitated by Government grant funding for affordable homes.
Persimmon reported a 7% rise in sales since the beginning of 2010 and said the sales rate per site was up by a fifth due to the company operating from fewer locations than a year earlier.
Annual sales fell to £1.42bn in 2009, compared with £1.76bn a year earlier.
However, the company generated a pre-tax profit of £77.7m, compared with a £780m loss in 2008, thanks in large part to a write-up of £74.8m based on a re-evaluation of the value of its land assets.
The company, which is one of the less indebted UK housebuilders, generated £356.8m of free cash flow in 2009, compared with £239.2m in the previous year.
This helped it to reduce net borrowings from £600.7m in 2008 to £267.5m last year, easily within the company’s debt facilities of £1bn, arranged in March last year.
Persimmon also opened 90 new sites during the year, leaving it with land holdings of 60,454 plots at the end of 2009, which according to current build rates should provide six years’ supply.
John White, chairman, said: “Our cash generation and cost control have placed the business in a strong position both operationally and financially for a recovering market.
“Prices have held firm since the beginning of the year and we remain focused on improving our operating margins and to profitably grow the business.”
However, the company added: "It is too early to make a precise forecast about the housing market, particularly in an election year, and we will remain cautious in our investment decisions."
The company reiterated its previous announcement that it does not intend to pay a dividend for 2009, following its strategy of conserving cash in the business to strengthen the balance sheet.
Persimmon shares, which have risen more than 18 per cent in the last year, rose 6.9p or 1.7 per cent in early trading on Tuesday to 407½p.
(Source)
Monday, 1 March 2010
David Cameron unveils new planning paper
A week ago, the Conservative Party finally published their long-awaited planning green paper. The paper proposes an overhaul of current regional spatial strategies, with the removal of the regional tier of planning, by instead transferring the responsibility of setting housebuilding goals to local authorities. Another key proposal of the paper is to give "third parties" such as residents, the ability to challenge planning decisions. This gesture appears to be a development of the Tory pledge to return "power to the people of Britain.
However, this concept of "third party appeals" drew criticism from the British Property Federation. Allowing residents to appeal against planning permissions won by developers, would seriously hamper the system by allowing all manner of appeals, the BPF says. These concerns were echoed by by Michael Gallimore, Partner and Head of Planning at Lovells, "developers will be extremely wary of the potential delays which could occur to schemes where third parties have a right of appeal."
Perhaps the most damming critique came from Matt Thomson, of The Royal Town Planning Institute, "such radical changes to the planning system could lead to a period of uncertainty, resulting in serious consequences for the provision of housing, employment and key infrastructure, and may even go as far as to impact the overall economic recovery".
One positive suggestion that caught my eye, was the introduction of a presumption in favour of sustainable development. This is a positive incentive to encourage the building more sustainable housing.
In summary, these plans would have major ramifications for the building of new homes. In a period when new homes construction has plummeted, and the building industry in general has been brought to it's knees, are unproven systematic changes to key legislation a the answer?
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