News

The TrustMark builder and trader vetting scheme is to be relaunched in the coming months with new tougher standards to increase consumer protection, the government announced this week as part of the Construction Industrial Strategy.

The relaunch falls under the strategy’s “image of the industry” theme, which commits industry and government to “a coordinated approach to health and safety and improving performance in the domestic repair and maintenance market.”

Liz Male, chairman of TrustMark and a member of the newly-formed Construction Leadership Council, welcomed the endorsement and the strategy’s engagement with the domestic sector.

“It’s the first time the domestic RMI sector has featured in a government strategy, but it’s a very economically active sector, worth £27bn a year so it’s important economically. The government knew it had to include us in the strategy for that reason.

The domestic sector is the part where the public touches construction, and it affects whether they’re prepared to encourage a son or daughter into the industry.”

The 30-plus scheme operators that make up the TrustMark brand operate to “core standards” backed by the government and first put together in 2005. New tougher standards are currently being agreed, which Male said would include new requirements on vetting and monitoring; trading records; records of directors; site inspections; and requirements to promote TrustMark.

There will also be new requirements on dispute resolution, in line with a new EU directive, and measures to align the scheme with the new Consumer Rights Bill.

“The majority of the changes are things the better scheme operators have been doing for a while, and now the other scheme operators will have to come up to scratch,” Male said.

Once the new core standards are agreed, the scheme will be “relaunched”. “There will be a big marketing push to let people know that the standards have changed.”

TrustMark currently has around 14,500 registered businesses, with some being registered under more than trade giving a total of 23,000 trades represented nationally.

Graham Watts, chief executive of the Construction Industry Council, welcomed the decision from BIS to back TrustMark, but pointed out that it only covered a small proportion of the traders offering building and related services to the public, and that the Construction Industry Strategy was not therefore fully embracing the issue.

He said: “At the Government Construction Summit [where the strategy was launched] there were references to the long tail of white van SMEs, and a large proportion of that market isn’t part of the professional industry – they’re not properly qualified, they don’t train apprentices. I don’t know how the Construction Leadership Council can make an impact on that sector.

“It’s good to have confidence expressed in TrustMark, but to be truly effective it would have to register tens of thousands more building companies – there are a great mass of businesses out there that are part of the image problem but not covered by the official structure of this council.”

Watts suggested that ONS figures indicate there are up to 400,000 businesses in the construction sector in total.

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Research by Siemens has revealed that nearly 5.7 million households classed as multi-dwelling units (MDUs) are at risk of not receiving the benefit of the energy and cost efficiencies offered by the Department of Energy & Climate Change (DECC) smart meter implementation programme. MDUs, which make up 21.5% of all households such as high-rises, house a significant proportion of consumers living in fuel poverty. Effectively and securely linking electricity and gas meters with in-home displays within MDUs is particularly complex compared with single-dwelling houses. Most commonly, meters are not located in the flat or apartment but are often found in communal areas.

This requires provision for shared infrastructure within MDUs to house smart meter technology as the standard approach of separate Home Area Networks (HAN) equipment will not be appropriate. Kevin Tutton, Siemens director of metering communications and services, said: “The government has made significant progress towards stabilising the roll-out of smart meters by delaying implementation. This has provided much needed extra time to ensure an effective and secure solution for MDUs is addressed. “Now is the window of opportunity to overcome the ‘high-rise challenge’ and ensure DECC’s business case and suppliers’ license obligations can both be met. It would be a failure of all involved in the programme to miss this chance to take action to provide all consumers with equal access to the energy and cost efficiencies offered by smart meters.” The current smart meter market design requires each energy supplier with customers in an MDU to install their own separate HAN equipment. This adds a significant amount of cost and complexity into the meter installation process, with the need for mass duplication of communication assets and multiple engineering visits.

These arrangements represent poor value for money and unnecessary consumer and landlord disruption. They also create maintenance accountability problems, particularly after consumers have changed supplier. Working with key development partners, Siemens has developed a turnkey solution for high-rise properties with flats, using a broadband over powerline (BPL) backbone. BPL is the preferred technology as it provides high performance and bandwidth connectivity to meters in difficult positions while using the existing infrastructure already available. The Wide Area Network gateway is then positioned where the best cellular signal reception can be received.

The Foundation Market MDU service solution is entering its final testing stages and is scheduled to go live in Q1 2014. Siemens is ready to start working with energy retailers now on trial requirements. With the Data Communications Company launch going back to 2015, there is now time for the industry to trial the end-to-end smart metering experience for consumers living in MDUs, establish how best to engage with communities and work with landlords and managing agents

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A new, Global Construction 2025, from Global Construction Perspectives and Oxford Economics shows that developing countries will drive construction growth over the long-term. This is true of different regions of the world, while key countries such as Qatar and Nigeria will be among the fastest growing.

Speaking at the launch of the report Bruno Lafont, Chairman & CEO, Lafarge, which is one of Global Construction 2025’s sponsors said, “Construction will account for 13.5% of global output by 2025, according to the report. To talk about construction is to talk about growth.”

He added, “Over 66% of global construction activity will be undertaking in emerging markets by 2025.”

Mr Lafont said key drivers such as urbanisation and high demand for infrastructure and housing in the early stages of countries’ development would see global construction growth out-strip GDP growth for the foreseeable future. “Urbanisation, driven by economic expansion is one of the biggest challenges we see. Every day an area as big as Paris – 110 km2 – is urbanised,” he said.

Although emerging markets are expected to lead the way, the report’s authors cautioned that growth would be more measured than in the past.

Jeremy Leonard of Global Construction Perspectives & Oxford Economics said of the broad economic picture, “Emerging markets will continue to grow significantly more rapidly than the developed world, but that growth will be at a slightly less robust pace than in the past. We’ve seen a change in some of the drivers in some of the emerging markets.”

He highlighted the move in China towards a more consumer-driven economy and the slow pace of reform in Brazil and India as examples of this.

“People who expect China to grow by 10%, as it has done for the last decade, are going to be disappointed. Growth is going to be nearer 7%,” he said.

While emerging markets are expected to see robust growth, the report’s authors were down-beat on the prospects for some key developed markets. “We can’t expect much more than 2% growth over the next decade or so,” said Mr Leonard. “We tend to talk about Europe as a lost decade of growth. Even when we get out of the current cyclical downturn, we only see about 1.8% growth in 2015 – 2020” he added.

And despite the current growth in the Japanese economy, which Mr Leonard put down to the ‘Abenomics’ stimulus measures that he said may break the country’s deflationary spiral, the long term prospects are less bright. “Japan is a country with a declining population and it is facing competition from its neighbours in the region,” he said.

Overall, global construction output is expected to grow at +4.3% a year over the next 12 years, compared to +3.5% for GDP growth. Western European construction is expected to under-perform, with an annual average of just +1.0%, the same rate as the developed countries of Asia-Pacific. Latin America is also expected to be below trend with +3.5% annual construction growth.

North American markets are expected to be more or less on the global trend at +4.2% annual growth, while Eastern Europe (+4.6%) and the Middle East and North Africa (+4.9%) are expected to be ahead of the curve. The most robust growth is expected to be in sub-Saharan Africa (+5.0%) and emerging Asia-pacific (+6.9%).

Of 46 key countries surveyed, Qatar is expected to enjoy the fastest growing construction market at an average annual rate of +10%

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The next generation of Pole Star’s NAO Campus Indoor Positioning solution combines a Cloud services platform with automatic crowdsourcing technologies. A disruptive innovation that automates the implementation and the maintenance of Indoor Location Services, lowers costs and drastically accelerates the worldwide expansion of the Indoor location service area.

Paris, July 1st, 2013 – Pole Star, the pioneer and world leader in indoor location technology, unveiled today ‘automatic crowdsourcing’, the next generation of its indoor location solution NAO Campus, capable to crowdsource and reference RF access point data to quickly and remotely deploy and maintain indoor location services.

With automatic crowdsourcing, the NAO Campus indoor location service can now be implemented in an entirely new venue without any staff in the field, by simply collecting users’ smartphone data in order to create the Positioning Database. Which removes entirely the site fingerprinting measurement process. This service is self-maintained through users’ own devices, in a low cost and dynamic way. It also provides the most reliable quality of service by self-referencing data information from diverse users at different moments and automatically corrects the positioning database with regular updates. No help is required from the user, except for agreeing to upload the data. An anonymous data collection process that entirely protects the user’s privacy. This innovative technology can be integrated in existing global applications or directly in a device, allowing the NAO Campus service to scale. It’s now available as a beta version and is being demonstrated to various strategic partners. Its commercial availability is scheduled before the end of 2013 for all Pole Star partners.

This technology is the result of 5 years of intensive innovation from the Pole Star’s team, and is based on the NAO Cloud platform currently in beta test. Pole Star’s patent pending automatic crowdsourcing is the world’s first to overcome the last barriers of indoor location services. It represents a huge milestone in the market for mobile solution providers or device manufacturers wanting to integrate indoor location functionalities in their services, at a large scale.

« Our automatic blind crowdsourcing technology represents a disruptive innovation in the indoor location market. We enable our service to scale remotely, in a very short period and for an unlimited number of venues worldwide. We offer an indoor location solution that answers the mobile location-based services market main challenge: make Indoor Location service as simple as GPS to use, available and accessible everywhere. We are actually in negotiations with large customers and partners to implement NAO Campus worldwide on a multi-site basis, » said Christian Carle, the CEO of Pole Star.

Blind Crowdsourcing is an additional feature integrated in Pole Star’s NAO Cloud. An indoor location one-stop shop platform which includes the NAO Campus field proven tool suite and the NAO Campus hybrid location engine, which combines all available source of data to determine the most accurate indoor location: using smartphone motion sensors, Wi-Fi, GPS and BLE 4.0 signals. It enables Pole Star’s partners to integrate indoor location in their mobile services in complete autonomy, in just few days and offers the best service for 100% of environments, at the lowest cost.

In addition to the NAO Cloud platform, Pole Star will offer an alternative Business Model based on a subscription approach (ILaaS: Indoor Location as a Service), depending on the number of sites covered. A solution that answers the need of multi-site coverage for marketing agencies, telecom operators, integrators and the entire location-based services eco-system.

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Labour is looking to introduce penalties for house builders that choose to hoard land rather than build it out.

This weekend Ed Miliband will deliver a speech to Labour’s National Policy Forum in Birmingham warning that house builders with planning ‘must use it or lose it’.

Labour has seized on figures that show planning permission has been granted for 400,000 homes in England that have not been built.

The speech is part of a move by Labour to focus the political debate on house building and highlight the Coalition Government’s failure to adequately tackle the housing crisis.

In a leak of his speech, Miliband says: “Permission to build should mean land-owners build. If there is unnecessary hoarding, developers should be encouraged to do what they are in business to do: build houses.”

“We have to be willing to confront some of the obstacles to house building.

“Across our country, there are firms sitting on land, waiting for it to accumulate in value and not building on it. Land-owners with planning permission, who simply will not build.

He warned: “We have to change that. That’s why as part of our Policy Review we will consult in the coming months on how to get that building started.

“All options should be on the table, including giving local authorities real power to say to the worst offenders that they should either use the land, or lose the land.

Miliband will highlight new figures published this week by Shelter showing young people who work hard are locked out of buying new homes for up to 30 years because of sky-high property prices fuelled by decades in which Britain has failed to build enough houses.

Despite surging profits among volume house builders and signs of a recovery in prices, the last quarter saw just 18,380 homes completed by the private sector – the lowest quarter in 23 years.

New figures also show the average time taken to complete a private development has risen from 20 months in 2008 to 25 months in 2012. In London it is 30 months.

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Olympic gold medallist Peter Wilson has gained a worldwide reputation for speed and accuracy, and he has now teamed up with a leading building equipment brand to find Birmingham tradesmen that display the same skills.

The double trap shooter, who hit the headlines when he scooped gold at London 2012, is targeting the keen-eyed tradesmen in conjunction with Bullet Woodscrews.

The Bullet Screw Off Challenge will see entrants complete a speed and accuracy ‘Screw Off’ against the clock, with the fastest competitor being crowned national champion.

The competition marks the launch of Bullet Woodscrews, which use cutting-edge technology to allow a faster and more precise screw application.

The Birmingham heat will take place at Birchwood Price Tools Birmingham office on 90 Summer Lane in Newton, and Bullet’s Head of Marketing Chris Mellor-Dolman is hoping the area will be well represented.

He said: “We wanted to show how superior this product is when it comes to speed and accuracy to get the job done as fast as possible.

“We realised that if there was anyone that demonstrated those characteristics it was Peter Wilson, so we thought it would be great to get him involved with the Bullet Challenge.

“The winner will be given a VIP day for four people with Peter at his training headquarters in London and will get to take him on in both his discipline and also their own speciality.”

Shooting ace Peter is looking forward to taking on the tradesmen and seeing how honed their skills are.

He said: “The Bullet Screw Off Challenge is a great way of highlighting the equal importance of speed and accuracy in the work environment, I might do a very different job but they remain the most important factors.

“I am looking forward to meeting the winner and their guests, and hopefully I’ll be able to show them a thing or two about double trap and learn a bit about their profession at the same time.”

The Birmingham heat will run from Monday 9^th June for two months.

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Towns across England will benefit from an additional £91 million of investment that will refurbish empty homes and commercial premises.

Communities minister Don Foster announced the programme today (June 20th) and now 6,000 derelict homes will be refurbished as a result.

The main focus will be in the Midlands and the north where the problem is much more severe than other areas of the country. Some £33 million of the empty homes programme funding will go to the north of England, with a further £11 million heading to the Midlands.

Specifically, the money will be spent on refurbishment in areas where empty properties have commonly led to problems such as squatting and rat infestation.

Properties such as this have led to house prices being affected, which naturally drives any remaining residents away from the area and deters people from moving in.

The funding is being allocated from two programmes. The first will see £61 million from the second round of the empty homes funding programme. Around two thirds of this (£41 million) is to be allocated by the Homes and Communities Agency to registered social landlords and the remaining money will go to community and voluntary groups.

After this, the second windfall, representing £30 million, is funding for 20 partnerships in areas of severe problems such as Liverpool, Manchester, Newcastle and Middlesbrough. This scheme will see around 3,500 homes come back into use.

Andy Rose, Homes & Communities Agency chief executive, said: “We had a very encouraging response to the funding across a wide range of types of property. This demonstrates a strong appetite and scope for bringing empty homes and properties back into use, which will help to reinvigorate our communities and towns.”

The government has already invested £130 million to refurbish around 11,500 empty homes in England since 2010, including £100 million to bring empty property back as affordable housing and the first “clusters of empty homes” programme investment of £30 million.

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After weeks of speculation, it has been announced that furniture retailer Dwell has ceased trading. The retailer has closed its 23 stores and House of Fraser concession, and – as things stand – will not honour outstanding customer orders.

Dwell had recently enlisted the help of adviser Argyll Partners to help find a buyer for the company, however, with no investment forthcoming, it has become the latest retail casualty on the high street.

“The business had been working with its advisers to secure further working capital for the business, and was actively in the process of talking to a number of interested parties who saw the value of the Dwell brand, its products, its customer base, and its multi channel proposition,” a spokesperson commented.

“Despite this, interest did not progress [and] as a result we have been left with no option but to close the business with immediate effect.”

In its most recent annual results, covering the 12 months to 27th January 2012, it was revealed that Dwell’s pre-tax losses had expanded from £439,721 to £1.69m.

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Embarrassed Manchester City bosses ban United shirts at the Eithad Campus construction site

Any workers at City’s new £120million training ground site wearing football shirts face face the sack

Construction workers on Manchester City’s £120million Etihad Campus have been warned they face the sack if they turn up wearing Manchester United shirts.

According to a labourer working at the 80-acre development all football shirts have been banned from the site which will become City’s new training ground.

This came after an incident last week where two Red Devil-supporting builders were ordered to remove their United shirts at the Ashton New Road development.

The labourer told the MEN: “Because the weather has been so nice a lot of the lads have been wearing football shirts. Some of those have been United shirts but on Tuesday two lads wearing United shirts were told to cover them up or get off the site.

“They asked why and were told that there was a no-football shirt policy. They said it was in the rules but it’s the first we’ve heard of it.”

He added: “We see a silver Land Rover giving people tours of the site and I think that the club may have been embarrassed by it.”

BAM, the construction firm building the new development are also carrying out random inspections to stop any United fans burying Paraphernalia in the foundations, according to the worker, although this claim has been denied by BAM.

He said: “It’s annoying a lot of the lads working there and you are now starting to see bit of ‘MUFC’ graffiti about the place.

“They are annoyed because builders always wear old football shirts. The site is in Manchester and so people are going to wear United shirts.”

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Cheshire East Council has announced a £500,000 investment into Macclesfield town centre in a further commitment to the town’s regeneration.

Plans were confirmed on Wednesday that a £90m redevelopment scheme will go ahead, while council leader Cllr Michael Jones said cash will be pumped into “tidying up” Chestergate, the Silk Heritage Centre, public signage and public areas.

Work has already been carried out in Macclesfield to repair and upgrade the market area, while paving around the town centre has been repaired and improvements have been made around the church area.

Cllr Jones said this was “phase one” of improvements, and “phase two” will be a multi-staged operation.

He said: “I am pleased to announce ‘phase three’ of this major redevelopment which follows my discussions with all parties before the planning decision was made.

“This will be a further £500,000 of Cheshire East capital funds spent on Macclesfield. This money was already budgeted for and will not be spent in any part of the Wilson Bowden phase.

“This is part of an ongoing commitment to see Macclesfield becoming a destination town in its own right.”

“Phase three” will include a “Free after Three” car parking scheme, which will be introduced in the Whalley Hayes car park.

Councillor David Topping, Cabinet member in charge of the environment, said: “The Free after Three scheme will be on a trial basis and on the one car park in Macclesfield.

“This will be with a view to extending to other towns. We believe this will provide a boost to businesses and encourage visitors and support the town centre.”

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