More Focus – Page 394
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Features
Planning approvals
Approvals have grown significantly in London and East Anglia over the summer. In Wales, however, there is little evidence planners are responding to warnings of undersupply
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Features
New-build completions
The housebuilding industry has been hard at work over the summer, maintaining steady completion levels, but daily sales dipped in June and July. Thank heavens they picked up in August. Maybe the downturn won’t happen after all …
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Buyer demand
SmartNewHomes reports that London bore the brunt of the summer slowdown with a fall in demand of 8.5%. That figure almost exactly matches the rise that Wales enjoyed. Meanwhile urban exiles continue to flock to the South-west
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Expert eye
What are developers cooking up in kitchens? James Pilling, senior designer at interior specialist Connections in Design, looks at the growing importance of kitchen design and its relationship with modern lifestyle
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£300m hospital takes Bovis to the top of August league
After a quiet July, Bovis Lend Lease climbs 29 places – and stays well ahead in the annual contractor charts
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Millau Viaduct: C’est magnifique!
Foster and Partners’ Viaduc de Millau in southern France is the highest, longest cable-stayed bridge in the world, and it opens in December. We admire the view, talks to the engineer and meets some enthusiastic locals.
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Features
People who need people
This year’s ºÚ¶´ÉçÇø/Hays Montrose careers survey found that construction’s workforce is overwhelmingly concerned with the problem of recruitment and training staff. We analyse the statistics
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Features
Specialist costs: Concrete frames
In the first of our specialist market overviews, Ian Purton of Gardiner & Theobald looks at the concrete sector’s lead times and costs
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Specialist Q&A
John Doyle Construction, part of the John Doyle Group, specialises in the construction of substructure, superstructure and infrastructure projects. Stef Stefanou is the firm’s urbane chairman.
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The burning of the bodies
Construction’s institutions may have been dealt a deadly blow last week, when they were attacked as isolationist and threatened with merger plans. We report on how reforms could spell the end of professional bodies as we know them
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What a result!
Last week, Wembley stadium opened its doors to the public to win over those who would be the Arch’s stiffest opposition – local residents and fans of the old twin towers. We went along to watch the project engineers rack up some PR points
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Features
Not an ivory tower …
… so much as a giant titanium egg, which Napier University has cooked up to attract students away from Edinburgh’s other universities – with a little help from ºÚ¶´ÉçÇø Design Partnership.
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Features
Richard McCarthy
The sheer get-up-and-go of the head of the ODPM’s sustainable communities group is proving increasingly valuable – particularly in easing the ‘creative tension’ between government and housebuilders. We got him to sit still for a minute.
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Features
Lafarge’s African mercy run
Charity ship bound for Africa will carry 48-tonnes of cement donated by Lafarge and builders merchant Ridgeons.
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Features
Kew for a song
Ted Cullinan celebrated a hat trick of gardening jobs by visiting Kew and writing a ditty in honour of partner Robin Nicholson.
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Features
Specifier Products
The latest ideas for adding the final flourish to a building, from sun-shading aluminium louvres to spectacular coloured glass interlayers. Plus, the connectors, cramps and beams that hold it all together