Blogs

Hurrah for the Government. It's not often this blog features those words and they are, naturally, slightly tongue in cheek. However, Help to Buy part 2 launches today and that is cause for some, if not celebration, then at least optimism.

So another Ecobuild exhibition has been and gone. The amount of planning, preparation and money that goes into exhibiting and it's over before you even know it. Like the proverbial curate's supper egg, Ecobuild had its good bits. It had its interesting bits and it had its 'what on earth are they doing here?' bits.

Sometimes it's nice to be able to say 'I told you so'. Often though, it's more of a pyrrhic victory.

So. It's back. Hurrah.

There is, according to the open letter in today's Telegraph, a "remarkable degree of consensus on the business case for tackling emissions.

We have something of a housing crisis in this country, which seems to be a fact universally acknowledged.

If the measure of a successful presentation is to make your audience feel as though you are talking directly to them or about them, then Charlotte Graham-Cumming hit the jackpot with hers last Friday.

Concrete is the most utilised building material in the world, with the exception of water, and cement and concrete are often associated with big-ticket construction projects (or even megastructures) such as bridges, dams or sports stadia. Yet, let's remember that the use of cement is not restricted to large projects alone, it has many uses…

Many of us can remember when all cement in bags was 'Ordinary' Portland cement or 'OPC' - nice and simple. All cement was basically the same and you made your choice on the basis of price, availability and brand loyalty. Easy for the customer and easy for the merchant! But now, there seems to be…

The building trade in UK has seen a massive assimilation of personnel from elsewhere in the EU - probably more than any other industry. While many of these workers speak very good English (certainly a lot better than my grasp of the Polish language!), this cannot always be taken for granted.