Paragon Mortgages has announced today that it will now accept applications for consumer buy-to-let through Mortgage Trust, its sister brand. The buy-to-let specialist’s revealed that its online application system is now live and ready for intermediaries to submit consumer buy-to-let applications. All existing products in the Mortgage Trust range will
Today sees the publication of Mark Farmer’s report on the construction industry. Titled Modernise or Die, it argues that construction faces an impending crisis, which it can only avert by embracing change. His report follows two decades on from similarly hard-hitting reports by Sir Michael Latham in 1994 and Sir
A stonemasonry company in Perth has been fined after an apprentice stonemason was seriously injured from contact with an overhead power line. Perth Sheriff Court heard how 20 year old apprentice Rodd McFarlane was working for T& M Stonemasonry, carrying out repairs at Waulkmill Cottage in Perth. During this work,
Groupe INSEEC is a French business school with campuses worldwide. INSEEC has recently expanded its central London campus, and designer Catherine White was commissioned to design a professional and welcoming interior. To help realise the school’s ambition, Catherine selected Heradesign high-performance acoustic ceilings from Knauf AMF for the campus entrance,
Water trading between utilities could be a vital tool for building the UK’s supply resilience but there are still a number of barriers that need to be overcome before it can become a reality, industry experts have warned. Upstream reform – including the facilitation of bulk water
Assessment Plan for the Fire, Emergency and Security Systems Apprenticeship approved Source link
TRIUVA Kapitalverwaltungsgesellschaft mbH (TRIUVA) has acquired a fully let mixed-use property at 62-64 Cornhill in the City of London in an off-market transaction. The freehold asset is in the direct vicinity of the Bank of England. The seller is TH Real Estate. The purchase price amounts to circa £32 million.
Paragon Mortgages has announced today that it will now accept applications for consumer buy-to-let through Mortgage Trust, its sister brand. The buy-to-let specialist’s revealed that its online application system is now live and ready for intermediaries to submit consumer buy-to-let applications. All existing products in the Mortgage Trust range will be available to consumer buy-to-let customers. Paragon will only accept consumer buy-to-let applications submitted by intermediaries who are fully registered with the FCA to conduct consumer buy-to-let business. Applications that may be impacted include: • A first-time landlord who is remortgaging a property they have inherited, as they have decided to rent it out (and who is not already a landlord) • A first-time landlord who chooses not to sell their existing home having then decided to rent it out and finance it with a buy-to-let mortgage John Heron, Director of Mortgages, said: “We are pleased we have been able to launch our consumer buy-to-let application process ahead of 21 March when MCD takes effect. Whilst the proportion of this type of business is not huge across the industry, it is a potentially important gateway to property investment for first-time landlords and should be supported. Intermediaries will need to be registered to submit this type of business to us and we have designed a decision tree within our system to help them identify those applications that fall into this category.” Source link
Today sees the publication of Mark Farmer’s report on the construction industry. Titled Modernise or Die, it argues that construction faces an impending crisis, which it can only avert by embracing change. His report follows two decades on from similarly hard-hitting reports by Sir Michael Latham in 1994 and Sir John Egan in 1998. But these are not the only landmarks from the 90s that are being revived 20 years on. February next year will see the release of Trainspotting 2 – some 21 years after its predecessor. And, in a sense, Mark Farmer is urging construction to ‘choose life, choose innovation, choose profitability but most importantly choose change’. His report certainly makes a compelling case for change. How our industry responds will only become clear in the coming months but looking just at the people issues, it’s clear we face a major challenge. Construction has an aging workforce, struggles to attract, develop and retain the skilled people it needs and will soon find it harder to recruit them from abroad. Part of the solution lies in finding better ways to do these things. But it’s also about finding new ways to deliver better outcomes with fewer people. Industry will need to lead this change but Farmer also issues a challenge to CITB to find new and better ways to support it. These are issues that we have started to address. For example, a key area of planned reform is the levy-grant scheme. Currently, it supports many employers to invest in key areas such as apprenticeships, health and safety and upskilling. But it can and should do a lot more. Today it is a cash machine that pays out the same day rate of £50 to everyone irrespective of their need and what type of training they are doing. Construction needs a new grant scheme that targets support at investing in the key skills that will generate industry-wide benefits and help to drive up performance. We have been working with our industry to develop a new approach that will deliver this and will be sharing details on this early next year. But CITB must also be clearer on how else it will support construction to meet its skill needs. Our new business plan will have a laser-like focus on supporting our industry in three key areas – careers (attracting its future workforce and delivering career progression); helping it to develop the right standards and qualifications and ensuring that it can access the training and development that responds to its needs. Again, we have been working our industry to develop it and next month will start to outline what it will mean in practice. Earlier this month, our new Prime Minister used Sam Cooke’s famous protest song ‘A Change is Gonna Come’ as a motif in her conference speech. We look forward to being part of that change in construction. This article was originally published by Construction News. About the author Steve Radley is Director of Policy at CITB. His previous roles include Director of Policy and External Affairs at the Manufacturers organisation, EEF, Chief Economist at the Henley Centre and Policy Adviser – Education and Training at the Confederation of British Industry. Source link
A stonemasonry company in Perth has been fined after an apprentice stonemason was seriously injured from contact with an overhead power line. Perth Sheriff Court heard how 20 year old apprentice Rodd McFarlane was working for T& M Stonemasonry, carrying out repairs at Waulkmill Cottage in Perth. During this work, McFarlane erected a tower scaffold to carry out some re-pointing work. While on the scaffold he came into contact with overhead 240volt electricity power lines that were supplying the cottage. The wind caused the power line to brush against his back causing him to turn around instinctively and grab the live wire. The flow of the current meant he was unable to let go for a few seconds until he jumped down from the board on the tower scaffold. His weight broke the wire and interrupted the flow of current. He received an electric shock and suffered burns to both hands requiring graft surgery and a possible future amputation of a little finger. An investigation by the Health and Safety Executive (HSE) into the incident which occurred on 2 August 2012 found that the stone masonry company should have developed a safe system of work. T&M Stonemasonry, of Highfield Road, Scone, Perth, pleaded guilty to breaching Section 2(1) of the Health and Safety at Work etc Act 1974, and was fined £16,000. Notes to Editors: The Health and Safety Executive (HSE) is Britain’s national regulator for workplace health and safety. It aims to reduce work-related death, injury and ill health. It does so through research, information and advice, promoting training; new or revised regulations and codes of practice, and working with local authority partners by inspection, investigation and enforcement. www.hse.gov.uk More about the legislation referred to in this case can be found at: www.legislation.gov.uk/ HSE news releases are available at http://press.hse.gov.uk Journalists should approach HSE press office with any queries on regional press releases. Source link
Groupe INSEEC is a French business school with campuses worldwide. INSEEC has recently expanded its central London campus, and designer Catherine White was commissioned to design a professional and welcoming interior. To help realise the school’s ambition, Catherine selected Heradesign high-performance acoustic ceilings from Knauf AMF for the campus entrance, reception and meeting rooms. Groupe INSEEC is a French business school with campuses worldwide. INSEEC has recently expanded its central London campus, and designer Catherine White was commissioned to design a professional and welcoming interior. To help realise the school’s ambition, Catherine selected Heradesign high-performance acoustic ceilings from Knauf AMF for the campus entrance, reception and meeting rooms. “I’ve specified Heradesign for several projects, particularly for its excellent sound absorption properties and colour options. Colour was a primary factor in enabling us to create a space that’s dynamic. I like that I can specify Heradesign in any shade and the finished result always looks great.” Heradesign is an innovative range of ceiling tiles and wall panels manufactured from sustainably sourced wood-wool. Its distinctive textured surface can be matched to a colour of your choice to create truly unique interiors. INSEEC chose two colours to reinforce its corporate identity. Heradesign offers not only colour choice but a wide range of design options too. Heradesign can be installed using exposed, concealed or semi-concealed grid systems. Rafts, baffles and wall panels provide visual appeal and are ideal for areas where additional acoustic control is required. INSEEC’s ceilings are fitted using a concealed grid to achieve a contemporary aesthetic. The school’s reception is a busy area with unwanted background noise from internal and external sources. Heradesign’s Class A sound absorption prevents these sounds from becoming a disturbance not just in reception but in adjacent rooms and corridors, helping improve speech intelligibility and contributing to a calmer environment. The adjoining cellular offices are required for confidential meetings. Heradesign is fitted in these spaces to provide room-to-room sound insulation by blocking noise from passing through the walls and improving privacy. For further information and reference projects, visit www.amfceilings/heradesign where you can also order samples or contact your area manager for technical advice. Source link
Water trading between utilities could be a vital tool for building the UK’s supply resilience but there are still a number of barriers that need to be overcome before it can become a reality, industry experts have warned. Upstream reform – including the facilitation of bulk water transfers between water companies – is one plank of Ofwat’s Water 2020 regulatory reforms, yet there remain several practical obstacles to it taking place, speakers said at the WWT Integrated Water Resource Management conference, held in Birmingham on Sep 14th and sponsored by Amec Foster Wheeler. “There is still considerable scope for water trading to take place but many of the constraints to this that were identified 20 years ago are still around,” Tony Ballance, Director of Strategy and Regulation at Severn Trent, told the conference. “We have relatively poor connections between water companies and the funding and financing of the work to improve them is a complex issue.” He told delegates that there are five main barriers to water trading: weak regulatory incentives; asymmetries in the information to be shared between companies; contractual complexities; an adequate pricing model; and the physical piping to interconnect water company areas. While the regulator and industry groups had made progress on negotiating the complexities of pricing and developing standard contracts and incentives, the poor connections between water companies were the biggest issue. He said that the six most important connecting pipelines that would need to be built – with the most significant involving links between the Severn Trent, Thames Water and Anglian Water regions – would cost around £1.5BN. While this is a lot of money, it needs to be considered against the risk of severe drought impacts and when compared to other national infrastructure projects such as HS2 or the Olympics, should not be unaffordable. A direct procurement model and financing along the lines of the Thames Tideway Tunnel should be considered, he added. A major Water UK report on building drought resilience was released the day before the conference. Jean Spencer, Regulation Director of Anglian Water and chair of the steering group for the report, said that the funding of major resilience projects – including those that facilitate water trading – illustrates a key dilemma. “Clearly water companies need to step up to balance today’s needs and the needs of tomorrow. But ‘who pays’ and how we balance affordability and resilience remains the key question. Customers may have a view of how much they are willing to pay for resilience, but if we get a situation where our water supply is threatened then that is a major policy question to consider,” she said. This article first appeared on wwtonline Source link
Assessment Plan for the Fire, Emergency and Security Systems Apprenticeship approved Source link
TRIUVA Kapitalverwaltungsgesellschaft mbH (TRIUVA) has acquired a fully let mixed-use property at 62-64 Cornhill in the City of London in an off-market transaction. The freehold asset is in the direct vicinity of the Bank of England. The seller is TH Real Estate. The purchase price amounts to circa £32 million. Manuel DeVigili, Head of Investment Management at TRIUVA, comments: “We are delighted to again use the current market phase following the Brexit vote to secure a premium property at attractive terms.” The total lettable area of over 32,292 sq ft (3,000 sq m) is divided between 24,757 sq ft (2,300 sq m) of office and 7,534 sq ft (700 sq m) of retail space. The property was initially constructed in 1988 and comprehensively refurbished in 2014, delivering a BREEAM certificate rating of “very good”. The anchor tenant is DHL. The building is located within the prime office core of the City of London. TRIUVA was advised by Savills. Linklaters provided the legal. Source link
