Benfield ATT Group

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What the timber frame sector can contribute.

The Code for Sustainable Development

Five years ago I gave a paper on Ecology to the HBF’s “Cracking the Code” conference in Birmingham.  It bombed - big time, and might well still do so today. While in essence ‘ecology’ concerns us all, it is outside daily interests and seen almost as part of a different sphere.

However, at least one element of my message then is more widely understood today – Climate Change and Zero Carbon. Continue Reading

This article links the potential for Britain's new HS2 transport infrastructure to spawn new technologies along with architectural and building concepts. In turn these could require our ideas about spatial, environmental and social planning to be revisited.

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New Home Planning Permits in Short Supply

According to the latest HBF Housing Pipeline report, planning approvals for new home s in the UK fell by another 10% last year Continue Reading

CO2 Emission Warning

In the Water, Energy & Environment Newsletter of 09/11/2011, Tim McManan-Smith writes that Global emissions are increasing faster than economic growth, reversing a slow, but gradual, reduction in carbon emissions intensity.   Continue Reading

Come on Chancellor, think about it.

Investing’ in a small VAT giveaway could create 800,000 jobs and yield near 85% financial return for Britain

Responding to David Cameron’s Prime Ministerial rallying call to the nation, I urge the Chancellor of Exchequer to grant home extenders and improvers a two year VAT ‘holiday’. Continue Reading

(Article by Mike Carey in "The DRUM Opinion" 7 Decembeer 2011)

I don't want to sound alarmist

... but it looks like Goldman Sachs has taken over Europe.  The continent has succumbed to the dictates of global finance, there was no choice. The bankers are holding us all to ransom and have done since the beginning of the GFC in 2008. Continue Reading

Jake Berry, parliamentary private secretary to housing minister still believes that 230,000 homes per year will be built by 2015, despite the fact that in the year to June 2011 only 107,210 homes were built.  He delivered this unbelievable statement to the Housing Market Intelligence conference.

Professor Michael Benfield of the Benfield ATT Group wonders how on earth this can possibly be achieved when the banks refuse to lend to anyone in the building sector and planning authorities are not embracing any of the Government Housing Policy reforms.

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For those that can be bothered to read it, the Government has just published:-

“Laying the Foundations: A Housing Strategy for England”

I’m sure that anyone and everyone involved in the housing building sector will (covertly or not) regard this with a huge degree of scepticism.

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(A Wales Forest Business Partnership announcement)

Under a ‘provision of ecosystem services’ remit,  the Welsh Government (WG) is proposing to bring together the functions of Environment Agency Wales (EAW) with Countryside Council for Wales (CCW) and Forestry Commission Wales (FCW) into a new Single Environment Body (SEB). Continue Reading