Industry seeks answers over Green Deal
Companies signed up to the Green Deal are remaining upbeat despite increasing signs that the government is backtracking on key elements. However, the industry is calling for greater clarity ahead of its October launch, writes Michael Glackin.
It remains unclear, for example, whether the Green Deal will include measures such as lowering stamp duty or council tax on energy efficient homes at a time when the government is implementing spending cuts across all departments.
The government looks set to scrap the controversial so-called “conservatory tax” — a measure proposed for the new Part L that would require homeowners to make their property energy efficient if they extended it.
The government has also confirmed that many businesses will be unable to take advantage of the Green Deal loan scheme this year. The scheme enables businesses and homeowners to access loans to improve the energy efficiency of their properties which are then paid back through the building’s energy bills. It is the central plank of the Green Deal to meet the goal of upgrading 14 million homes and offices in the next decade.
Rob Lambe, managing director of Willmott Dixon Energy Services, one of 22 firms which signed up top the Green Deal last month, said: “It would be better to have more clarity about what the Green Deal will finally look like. The important thing is that we know where the government is heading with the Green Deal and that the scheme is fit for purpose when it launches.”
He added: “The [solar panel Feed-in] tariff issue was badly managed, but it is not a problem in the overall scheme of things. But the developments surrounding the conservatory tax are unfortunate.
We did see it as important measure to influence the market, but it’s been squashed before there was a chance for it to be properly discussed and developed, largely because of a lot of uninformed press opinion.”
A spokesperson for Carillion Energy Services (CES) added: “We see considerable growth in this market and as an energy services company we’re in a good position to deliver energy efficiency when it is finally launched.”
Government insiders said clarity on which measures would be used to “underpin the Green Deal” would have to be made within the next eight weeks.
Last month the chief executive of insulation manufacturer Superglass said the government needed to provide details of the Green Deal “as soon as possible”.
Alex McLeod said greater clarity of the new regulations was needed to bring stability to the housing supplies sector ahead of the Green Deal’s launch and the scrapping of the government’s Carbon Emissions Reduction Target (CERT).
But Andrew Clark, commercial analyst with Gentoo Green, part social housing company Gentoo Group, said: “The Green Deal represents the biggest home improvement scheme since the Second World War. So we’re not alarmed by current events, we’re very upbeat because people want this to happen.”
Former Davis Langdon directors in new venture
The first of what is expected to be a slew of new consultancies set up by the directors of Davis Langdon will start trading this month.
Nick Schumann and Erland Rendell, both former equity partners of the firm, are joining forces in a new consultancy called Atorus, aimed at advising clients and designers to “deliver a smarter way of working”. The pair left Davis Langdon in October and were both tied into six-month non-compete clauses.
Davis Langdon was bought by US firm Aecom in August 2010 and has seen a string of high-profile departures. There is also speculation that more senior people will break away once the buy-in period is up in October.
“We believe that the first 20% of a project determines its success or failure. But we keep repeating the same mistakes. We want to bring about a change in the industry and provide a smarter way of working through improved procurement, better relationships and integrating technology,” said Schumann, who joined Davis Langdon in 2000 when he sold his own consultancy to the firm.
Rendell, who set up Davis Langdon’s Abu Dhabi Office and became its head of knowledge and thought leadership, said: “We will also look to bring in learning from other industries.” Rendell joined the firm after graduating 17 years ago.
The pair say that they have work in the pipeline but can’t reveal as yet who their first clients will be.
Picture: Hufton+Crow
More space at Kingston
A new five-storey building at Kingston University’s Kingston Hill campus has officially opened. The 7,290m2 building, designed by HawkinsBrown, took contractor Wates just
under two years to construct. The building has been designed to accommodate a mixture of centrally programmable teaching space, and accommodation for the Faculty of Business and Law.
The building employs a number of environmental strategies and has achieved a BREEAM rating of Excellent. A ground source heat pump is the main source of renewable energy. The building has one of the deepest ground source well fields in the UK, providing up to 90% of the building’s heating and 85 % of the cooling.
Call to cull regulations to reduce home costs
Proposals to cut the dozens of regulations covering house building into four regulatory frameworks are being considered by the Cabinet Office.
The proposals have been drawn up in a new report by the Housing Forum, which claims that the urgent cull of the 200 regulations covering housing and construction is needed to reduce the cost of house building and encourage innovation.
Representatives from the Housing Forum met civil servants last month to discuss its plans set out in Rationalising the Regulations for Growth and Innovation, which have been drawn up in response to the government’s Red Tape Challenge. The report also added its voice to the growing criticism of how the public sector interprets EU procurement rules.
Report author Andy von Bradsky, chairman of PRP Architects, said evidence suggested that half of all OJEU notices were from the UK. “The use of frameworks, coupled with the overzealous interpretation of EU procurement rules is adding to costs of contracts, rather than producing much anticipated economies of scale.
“According to our calculations, a typical local authority framework for consultancy services for 40 projects each worth on average £1m encounters £1m worth of costs for the client and consultant teams, with 70% of the costs borne by consultants, most of whom will have little or no opportunity to recover their costs.”
The reports says regulations, including Housing Quality Indicators, Lifetime Homes, Code for Sustainable Homes, Building for Life, CDM Regulations, and Mayor of London Housing Design Standards, could be subsumed into the four frameworks or ditched, to prevent clashes in requirements. Shelagh Grant, chief executive of the Housing Forum, said:
“The Cabinet Office is very sympathetic to the overlapping bureaucracies we highlighted and we expect this to be discussed with the Department of Communities and Local Government.”
The Housing Forum is recommending that the new operating regulatory structure should consist of: the recently enforced National Planning Policy Framework; National Building Regulations — adapted to accommodate a section for housing; Local Standards to be applied subject to viability testing; and a single National Housing Standard for social housing schemes that have an element of public subsidy — which it says could help reduce costs to the public sector.
Von Bradsky added: “The role of regulation in housing has moved from one of protecting the health and safety of occupants and reducing risk in construction, to one of a much wider compliance agenda, regulating everything from the length of a flight of stairs to the size of a bicycle shed.”
“It has become a process of piling regulation upon regulation,” added Ben Derbyshire, director of HTA Architects and co-author of the report.
Construction experts in demand Down Under
Australia and New Zealand are stepping up a campaign to recruit UK construction professionals in what will be their biggest migration drive since the heyday of the “ten pound poms” more than 40 years ago.
A series of trade fairs is taking place across the UK and Ireland offering opportunities and advice to professionals on both short-term visas and emigration as the UK economy and construction remains mired in recession.
New Zealand in particular is seeking project managers and construction managers for rebuilding work in Christchurch, the country’s second city, which was devastated by a series of earthquakes in 2010 and 2011.
A survey published this month by recruitment giant Manpower revealed hiring expectations among employers in Christchurch, where thousands of buildings need to be repaired or rebuilt, have risen sharply this year as reconstruction of the city begins in earnest.
Manpower expects an additional 36,000 workers will be needed at the peak of reconstruction and said Christchurch was now the strongest employment market in New Zealand. At the same time, the reconstruction of Christchurch has reduced the spare capacity of construction professionals across the country, providing opportunities elsewhere in New Zealand.
In Australia there are opportunities for project engineers, building surveyors, town planners and project managers to work on the continuing delivery of the government’s ambitious Nation Building programme, says a Hays report.
Waterloo creation
Developer Chelsfield has submitted ambitious plans for the redevelopment of Elizabeth House next to Waterloo Station. The first major development by Sir David Chipperfield Architects in London proposes the creation of a new business district that includes two new buildings and 10,000m2 of public space in front of Waterloo station, plus a new Victory Arch Square.
