NEWS In Brief
NEW SUSTAINABILITY PANEL The Mayor of London and Transport for London are calling on consultants to join a new architecture, design and urbanism procurement panel. One aim of the panel will be to promote sustainable development in the capital.
CONTRACTOR ORDERS RISE About 44% of contractors have reported an increase in enquiries for the first quarter of 2012, up from 32% last quarter, while 37% saw an increase in orders, up from 30%. The National Specialist Contractors Council said this was the highest rate of improvement for three years and has created some ‘cautious optimism’ in the sector.
www.nscc.org.uk
FM STANDARDS CONSULTATION A consultation on standards in facilities management has been launched by the Royal Institute of Chartered Surveyors. RICS says it wants to provide a ‘foundation for the wider promotion of facilities management in markets.
CCS TASK FORCE CHAIR A chairman has been announced for the new Carbon Capture and Storage Cost Reduction Task Force, which will advise government and industry. Jeff Chapman is chief executive of the Carbon Capture and Storage Association.
Ministers accused of wasting time over school rebuilds
l Education Department says it will not be rushed over applications from institutions
Labour has accused ministers of time-wasting by failing to push ahead with the promised programme of school refurbishment projects.
Since Labour’s Building Schools for the Future (BSF) programme was cancelled by the coalition government two years ago, schools have been waiting for news on their applications for rebuilding work. The cash is coming from the £2bn, five-year Priority School Building Programme announced by Education Secretary Michael Gove in July 2011. Applications for funds from the scheme had to be submitted by October last year, with schools expecting a decision by last December. But, as the Journal went to press, the announcement of the first allocation of cash was still uncertain.
Shadow Eductation Secretary Stephen Twigg said the Department for Education’s (DfE) delay in announcing which projects would go ahead was ‘wasting precious time’. But the DfE said it ‘would not be rushed’ over such an important scheme.
About 35 secondary schools are expected to be given the go-ahead in the first wave of funding, but the full announcement of allocations will to take much longer because a longer-term ‘condition survey’ of schools
The government is accused of delaying school refurbishments
is being conducted by three project management companies. Davis Langdon, one of the firms, said the survey, begun in March this year, would take 15 months to complete.
The results will be used to determine which schools will receive rebuilding funding in future. Davis Langdon also said it had been working on new ways of building to cut costs, using standardised designs and new techniques.
This approach follows the findings of the government-commissioned James Review of school building procurement, carried out last year in the wake of the BSF closure.
Construction activity rising, says RICS
Despite the country’s slip back into recession, activity in the construction industry rose slightly in the first three months of this year, according to the latest Construction Market Survey carried out by the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors (RICS).
The RICS data appears to
contradict figures from the Office for National Statistics, which reported that construction output fell by 3% and helped push the UK into a double dip recession. RICS reported that 8% more chartered surveyors across the UK reported increases rather than decreases in workloads.
‘This is a notable improvement on the negative reading seen towards the end of 2011 and reflects a marked contrast in performance between the private and public sectors. The former is now showing some signs of life, with workloads in the commercial sector in particular picking up,’ said RICS.
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CIBSE Journal June 2012
Shutterstock / Sylvie Bouchard
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