The post Read the Latest News on the U.K. Rail Network Advancement, a Quick Guide to Buying Used Construction Equipment, and Yimbys Urging Developers to Reform to Solve Affordable Housing Dilemma appeared first on UK Construction Blog.

In today’s news, we will look into a Significant Step Forward for the United Kingdom’s Rail Network, the Construction of the Birmingham Curzon Street Station Is About to Begin. In the meanwhile, let’s get started on learning about A Straightforward Guide to Buying Used Construction Equipment. However, The Yimbys are working to alleviate the shortage of affordable housing by putting pressure on developers to make changes.

Start of HS2’s Birmingham Curzon Street Station Construction: U.K. Rail Network Advancement

Original Source: HS2’s Birmingham Curzon Street Station Construction to Commence: A Leap Forward in U.K.’s Rail Network

In the coming year, building will begin on the Birmingham Curzon Street station, a critical component of HS2. Despite the cancelation of its phase two extension to Manchester in October, HS2 continues to advance with the goal of dramatically cutting travel time between Birmingham and London. The HS2 railway is expected to shorten the Birmingham-London commute from 81 to 52 minutes between 2029 and 2033.

Birmingham Curzon Street Station: Progress’s Milestone

With a £5 billion contract for Curzon Street station development, HS2 Ltd. will issue eleven similar contracts for the project’s railway systems. These systems will have tracks, signaling, electricity, and overhead wires. Phone conversations and streaming should continue along the route, even in tunnels. This project employs over 30,000 people, supporting tens of thousands more supply chain employment.

Recent and Future Milestones

This year, HS2 completed the twin-bore tunnel beneath Long Itchington Wood in Warwickshire, began platform installation at Old Oak Common station in West London, and advanced the Colne Valley Viaduct. In addition, a 10-mile twin-bore tunnel under the Chiltern Hills should be finished next year. The main civil engineering work for the project is expected to finish in 2026 and 2027, with several related contracts starting.

HS2’s 2024 Vision

HS2 Ltd.’s executive chair, Sir Jon Thompson, expressed delight and satisfaction in 2023’s progress and promised no slowdown in project construction next year. To cut expenses, Manchester and Leeds extensions were scrapped, but 2024 construction milestones remain. Building the new Curzon Street station in central Birmingham and finishing the Chiltern Hills tunnel are examples. HS2 Ltd. is also hiring a new CEO after the last one left in September.

Buying Used Construction Equipment: A Quick Guide

Original Source: A Quick Guide for Purchasing Used Construction Equipment

Buying old construction equipment is like finding treasure. The appropriate equipment can make or break your project. Choosing from the many possibilities can be difficult.

Builders, fear not—we have a fast tutorial that feels like a coffee discussion to help you make a smart choice.

Define Your Needs: Consider your project’s specific requirements before exploring used construction equipment. Consider the project kind, size, and features needed.

Clear needs will guide your choice of excavators or loaders for excavating or heavy lifting.

Create a Budget: Finances are the unsung heroes of any enterprise. Set a reasonable secondhand construction equipment budget. Remember to budget for equipment maintenance and refurbishment.

As with sailing, a solid budget helps you navigate the choppy waters of building.

Discover Trusted merchants: Finding a trustworthy vendor in the enormous sea of merchants is like finding a reliable compass. Find sellers with a solid reputation, track record, and excellent customer reviews. There are many possibilities online, and Mascus is a good site to get used construction equipment.

Imagine finding a Mascus backhoe that will alter your project.

Thoroughly inspect: Just like buying a car without test-driving it. Use that logic on construction equipment. Check the machinery for wear and tear. Make sure the engine, parts, and functionality operate.

Be thorough in your search for reputable equipment, like a detective.

Review Maintenance Records: Maintenance records tell the narrative of each machine. Request full equipment service history from the seller. This will show how effectively the machine has been maintained and its future reliability.

Like reading a book, the maintenance records tell the machine’s story.

To effectively negotiate for secondhand construction equipment, it is important to learn the art of negotiation. Be polite when haggling. Check the market value, list repairs, and stick to your budget. Finding the proper dance rhythm assures a smooth deal.

Consider Financing Options: Not everyone has a nearby treasure box. Consider financing to reduce costs. Many sellers and banks provide customized financing. It’s like having a financial partner to help you achieve construction greatness.

When searching for old construction equipment, employ your detective skills. Check every crevice for wear and tear. Test its functions like a ride.

Leave no stone untouched, from engine heartbeat to part condition. Like a detective solving a riddle, comprehensive inspection reveals your possible building partner’s genuine personality.

Conclusion

It’s exciting to buy used construction equipment, but each piece has a story. Every step is vital to finding the right machine for your project, from describing your demands to carefully inspecting it.

You might find the perfect equipment to save your construction story. Happy searching, builders! Hope your projects are as durable as your gear.

Yimbys Urging Developers to Reform to Solve Affordable Housing Dilemma

Original Source: The Yimbys tackling the affordable homes crisis by forcing developers to change

Local councils are fighting developers to build affordable housing amid a shortage.

Local Conservative councillor Olly Monk says, “I don’t care if I am not re-elected,â€� as we travel through Cornwall. “I just want to ensure future generations have homes here.â€�

Mr. Monk, 56, is Cornwall Council’s housing and planning portfolioholder. He showed me Langarth Garden Village near Truro, his pride and joy, to build 10,000 homes.

Cornwall Council’s civil engineering arm, Cormac, is creating a new town to alleviate the area’s severe housing shortage and improve infrastructure.

UK construction activity fell for the third month in a row in December due to falling housebuilding. In England, over a million households are on social housing waiting lists. 104,510 households, including 131,370 dependent children, were homeless in temporary housing in 2023, a record high.

Recently, Cornwall has been impacted severely due to a growth in second houses and holiday lets. This has increased homelessness and made it harder for low-income households, especially important workers, to dwell in the neighborhood.

Langarth, nestled between two hills, is the kind of future-focused new town that Leveling Up and Housing Secretary Michael Gove and Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer have been asking for as Labour and the Conservatives want to be the party of “builders, not blockers�.

Political oxymoron: policy planning. It is technical, boring, and controversial enough to spark Westminster backbenches and social media conflicts.

These camps are called pro-building Yimbys (Yes In My Back Yard) and anti-development Nimbys. They often fight on X (previously Twitter) or leaflet political conventions.

About 3,550 new dwellings will be offered to locals in Langarth. The plan comprises a new 8km road, cycle lane, two schools, a rugby pitch, a football pitch, and an eco-friendly geothermal heating network to sustain these dwellings.

Not everyone supported Cornwall Council’s essential new housing initiative’s planning permission.

In England, private rents are rising above what people can afford, social housing waiting lists are growing, and private developers are accused of “land bankingâ€�—waiting for land’s value to rise before building on it.

Sometimes builders obstruct.

Langarth was developed after Mr. Monk, who was first elected in 2017, took on private developers who controlled some of the site. He used Compulsory Purchase Orders (CPOs) to acquire the land they were sitting on but not building on back into public control. Even then, landowners objected to planning due to a “conflict of interest�.

“I believe that councils shouldn’t be afraid to use [CPOs] for the greater good,â€� Mr. Monk said.

Everyone has their reasons for supporting or opposing development, but I don’t think councils should be scared to push forward a proposal like this—we need local housing.â€�

He continued, “We’ve got the resolve and determination to deliver houses. “If you listened to every objection, you’d never build a house.â€�

Mr. Monk, unlike most politicians, doesn’t care about popularity. He’d rather know he helped Cornwall’s future.

He advises local governments to be “strategic� and “thinking about what they need to be doing in the next 10, 20 or 30 years�. He said that included “making plans for garden villages and formulating a strategy to accumulate land and deliver�.

Without forward planning, Mr. Monk argues “balance in the housing will never materialise and things will just become more and more unfair�.

Mr. Monk worries that housing will become “ever more out of reach� for “exactly the type of people you need living in communities�—key workers, young families, and low- and middle-income people.

In many ways, Mr. Monk’s Cornwall approach is what Mr. Gove wants from local governments. While launching his long-awaited planning reform in a new National Planning Policy Framework, Mr. Gove blasted 20 local authorities for not providing enough housing and seven for not having local plans.

However, 60 Conservative Nimby MPs rebelled against Mr. Gove’s plans to reform planning, which included forcing local councils to meet mandatory housebuilding targets to build urgently needed homes, at the end of 2022, forcing them to be watered down.

Mr. Gove now promotes planning but not housing targets.

However, Labour wants to enhance Section 106, which requires developers to build social dwellings.

Investors panicked when Liz Truss scrapped the Conservatives’ “Stalinistâ€� 2022 housebuilding objective of 300,000 new houses. Housing targets, like the local plans Mr. Gove wants, demonstrate investors—who fund developers—that housebuilding is serious and that demand will be met.

One investor told me at Mr. Gove’s planning reform launch: “Things keep changing and we don’t really know what they [the government] are planning for.â€�

Mr. Gove criticized London’s Labour-run Wandsworth Council. The Housing Secretary claims Wandsworth is “exacerbatingâ€� housing shortages by pressuring developers to build affordable housing instead of private homes.

Wandsworth housing cabinet member Aydin Dikerdem is 32. Elected in 2016,

He told me at Battersea Arts Centre that “local government needs more powers and more grants to ensure developers are delivering [affordable social housing], not further deregulation�.

As part of austerity measures to reduce the public funds-spending imbalance, the Conservatives decreased affordable housing funding by 60% in 2010. Today, the £11.5bn Affordable Homes Programme has not kept pace with inflation.

Like his Cornwall Conservative counterpart, Mr. Dikerdem has fought Wandsworth developers. His Regulation 18 redrawing of the local plan and Homes for Wandsworth strategy, which will build 1,000 council homes on council-owned land, have made more affordable homes possible.

Nearly 10,000 Wandsworth families are on the social housing waiting list.

“We inherited a local plan from the previous Conservative administration we were unhappy with,� Dikerdem remarked.

When building in Wandsworth, developers only have to create 35% affordable dwellings.

“We want an affordable housing/housing for private sale split that favors social rent at 70% and intermediate products like shared ownership at 30%,â€� Mr. Dikerdem said. This is the maximum allowed by the Greater London Authority’s London plan and the most progressive a local council may be.

Instead of developers and their PR reps entertaining local lawmakers, Mr. Dikerdem welcomed them to Wandsworth town hall for “sandwiches and tap water�.

Stability is what developers seek, said Dikerdem. “They want to know your position and consistency. It was crucial for us to define what we wanted.�

Mr. Dikerdem says his team wants stability to build homes.

“Developers came to sandwiches and tap water,� he said. “The meeting was very productive. They were delighted to invest. Delivering homes people need is our goal, not speculative profit extraction.�

Mr. Dikerdem goes beyond creating individual residences that London investors buy. Building affordable homes for locals would reduce social housing waiting lists and get people out of emergency temporary housing.

Mr. Dikerdem said, “I think political leadership needs to be really tough on planning and not be scared to push plans at the review stage.� “Newly built social homes in London are worth fighting for. If you can acquire 10, 20, 30 more. Well worth it.�

Mr. Dikerdem disputes Mr. Gove’s claim that local governments like his trying to “negotiate essential social housingâ€� with developers are to blame for poor housebuilding.

Mr. Monk also criticizes the 13-year Conservative rule.

He remarked, “I don’t think local councils have enough power to build. “We want to build homes in Cornwall but planning is too difficult.�

Give telecoms businesses development rights to build 5G masts, Mr. Monk says, and “if they did something like that for housing, you’d see a much bigger increase [in the volume] of affordable housing rolled out across the country�.

“I’m disappointed with all governments, not just this one. Due to this protectionist stance, they have failed to make major planning rule adjustments to allow home delivery.â€�

The Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities spokeswoman said: “As the Housing Secretary has recently stated, we must build more homes, but they must be in desirable locations. An ambitious long-term housing plan has put us on track to build one million houses this Parliament.

“We know that current local plans deliver housing. With the new National Planning Policy Framework, authorities are more likely to create local plans. It’s no longer acceptable for municipal governments to lack a strategy, leaving residents without housing.

Summary of today’s construction news

Overall, we discussed the crucial Birmingham Curzon Street station, which is part of HS2, will start construction in the next year. High Speed 2 (HS2) is still moving forward with the intention of drastically reducing travel time between Birmingham and London, even if its second expansion to Manchester was canceled in October. Between 2029 and 2033, the HS2 railway is projected to reduce the Birmingham-London commute time from eighty-one to fifty-two minutes.

At the same time, it’s like striking gold when you buy used construction equipment. Having the right tools might determine the success or failure of your project. It can be challenging to choose among all the options. Furthermore, there is a severe lack of affordable housing, and local councils are battling developers to address the issue. “I don’t care if I am not re-elected,” remarks local Conservative councillor Olly Monk as we travel through Cornwall. I simply want to make sure this place is home to generations to come.