NEWS
News brief... NEW HOMES
OVERHEATING RISK As we progress towards the zero carbon homes standard, with homes built to higher levels of air tightness, the issue of homes that suffer from overheating is one that is easily forgotten when outdoor temperatures are plummeting. While overheating in dwellings is generally only experienced during summer months, NHBC Foundation has recently published its second research report on the subject, ‘Overheating in New Homes: a review of the evidence’ to provide the industry with further guidance ahead of next year's warmer seasons. A companion report to ‘Understanding
Overheating: where to start’ published earlier this year, the new report builds on the guidance provided to house builders and designers, documenting a wide-ranging review of existing information and evidence on overheating, approaching the issue from the perspectives of housing and health issues.
CONTINUING INDUSTRY
CONTRACTION Figures of construction new orders for the third quarter of 2012, which have been released by ONS, are 7 per cent lower than the same quarter of 2011 and 5 per cent lower over the first three quarters of this year, when compared to the same period last year. Although Q3 has seen some improvement against the second quarter in 2012, the overall level of construction new orders remains very poor, indicating continuing challenging conditions for construction in 2013.
Top of the class Largest Southampton Primary School for twenty five years opens
The new Newlands Primary School in
Southampton – the largest primary school to be built by Southampton City Council for over 25 years - has officially opened.
T
he two form entry, 420 pupil primary school, which is constructed on
the site of the previous school, comprises a range of modern teaching areas with a clear focus on the use of both internal and external learning spaces.
Capita Symonds provided full multidisciplinary design services on the project including architecture, landscape architecture,
cost management, structural engineering, mechanical and electrical, CDM co-ordination and BREEAM assessment. The classrooms have all been designed to meet current education standards and enhanced by the amount of natural daylight that floods into the building.
There is also a large flexible
HCA
welcomes funding
National housing and regeneration body, the Homes and Communities Agency (HCA), has welcomed an additional £515m government funding boost to de-risk and dispose of surplus government
public sector land, and spend up delivery of large-scale sites. This will enable the delivery of thousands of new homes, signalling an enhanced role for the Agency in managing and accelerating the disposal of government public land. As outlined in the Autumn Statement and confirmed by Housing Minister Mark Prisk, £290m of this funding will allow the HCA to introduce measures that will bring forward the
disposal of central government land, such as installing the right infrastructure. This includes £100m for HCA to purchase surplus public land from central government departments, and £190m to invest in surplus public land to reduce risk and make sites more attractive to potential purchasers. The remaining £225m is a rolling programme of recoverable investment and tailored HCA support to a number of large-
4 | British Builder & Developer |
BritishBuilder.co.uk
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