5
Welcome... T
he yellow brick road which the building industry travels is anything but straight, rarely flat and never without obstacles. Take house developers and property investors – how many do we know who were extremely wealthy with a vast portfolio one decade and then virtually bankrupt the next? Dubai was the boom building place before it spectacularly went into freefall and became a used car lot with scores of abandoned BMWs and the like, keys still in the ignition, left by fleeing owners at the airport. Of course, this is all the result of the world recession and the UK has been hit harder than most. The difference here is that we are frustrated by the Government’s inability to lead.
Consider the social housing programme which is suffering serious cuts because the Government is trying to reduce public spending. That’s the same Government which only last June made affordable homes a priority by releasing an extra £1.5 billion. Now it’s reported that grant-funded completions will drop to around 29,900 in the next year which is 34% down from the current year’s 45,500 target.
This news comes not long after the Homes and
Communities Agency announced the value of its privately-held development assets had plunged by around £1.1 billion because of the housing crash.
Everyone is telling the Government that the stop-go approach from which the building industry in general and the housing sector in particular is currently suffering has to change or at least be consistent and equitable. Stop-go is not what we want. We need blue-sky thinking. We need encouragement, firm decisions and direction.
Take the two different planets of East London and the North. Visit the one and you would have no idea what the recession, the building recession that is, is all about and be stoned that no domestic estate agent has the time to talk with you. Visit the other but tiptoe quietly lest you awake people from their slumber.
You
think it’s bad but sympathise with County Galway for a moment where our research has unearthed the staggering statistic that, according to 5 different builders’ merchants only 11 new homes were built in October!
Sadly, the trouble is timing. It’ll soon be that Christmas break which goes on
Welcome to Specification Magazine.
interminably. We may think we will start the NY with renewed vigour but there’s talk that GB may take GB to the polls in March because he wants to or certainly in June because he has to. So, the consensus is to wait and see what will happen because, sure as bricks are bricks, something dramatic will happen either way after the Election.
Ah well, we musn’t be depressed and Specification magazine certainly isn’t. We acknowledge the law of universal physics which dictates that everything is equal and opposite; cyclical progress rules. So be of good cheer and have a good Christmas. And remember that this year’s must-have present for your design and construction friends has to be Lego. If they can’t build anything for real they can at least practise while they wait!
DAVID STILES PUBLISHING DIRECTOR
Click here to request literature
Page 1 |
Page 2 |
Page 3 |
Page 4 |
Page 5 |
Page 6 |
Page 7 |
Page 8 |
Page 9 |
Page 10 |
Page 11 |
Page 12 |
Page 13 |
Page 14 |
Page 15 |
Page 16 |
Page 17 |
Page 18 |
Page 19 |
Page 20 |
Page 21 |
Page 22 |
Page 23 |
Page 24 |
Page 25 |
Page 26 |
Page 27 |
Page 28 |
Page 29 |
Page 30 |
Page 31 |
Page 32 |
Page 33 |
Page 34 |
Page 35 |
Page 36 |
Page 37 |
Page 38 |
Page 39 |
Page 40 |
Page 41 |
Page 42 |
Page 43 |
Page 44 |
Page 45 |
Page 46 |
Page 47 |
Page 48 |
Page 49 |
Page 50 |
Page 51 |
Page 52 |
Page 53 |
Page 54 |
Page 55 |
Page 56 |
Page 57 |
Page 58 |
Page 59 |
Page 60 |
Page 61 |
Page 62 |
Page 63 |
Page 64 |
Page 65 |
Page 66 |
Page 67 |
Page 68 |
Page 69 |
Page 70 |
Page 71 |
Page 72 |
Page 73 |
Page 74 |
Page 75 |
Page 76 |
Page 77 |
Page 78 |
Page 79 |
Page 80 |
Page 81 |
Page 82 |
Page 83 |
Page 84 |
Page 85 |
Page 86 |
Page 87 |
Page 88 |
Page 89 |
Page 90 |
Page 91 |
Page 92