Plumb Center calls for more boiler scrappage schemes Published:  09 June, 2016 There may be a new mayor installed at City Hall, but the London Boiler Scrappage scheme is still in place and its success to date has led Plumb Center to renew the call for other local authorities to follow suit. Just over four months into the scheme, more than a fifth of the maximum 6,500 vouchers have been issued and, with 4,000 applications in progress, that figure is rising by the day. The pattern follows that seen during the national boiler scrappage scheme in 2010 and proves homeowners and landlords have an appetite to replace inefficient boilers when a suitable incentive is in place. As a result, Plumb Center is now encouraging other local authorities to follow suit. Tim Pollard, head of sustainability at Plumb Center, said: “The London Boiler Cashback Scheme has proven once again that when a tangible carrot is dangled, a significant proportion of homeowners will bite. I’m not surprised by the success of the scheme and I have no doubt that the target of 6,500 installations will soon be met – we hope that the new mayor continues the commitment through to completion. It has been carefully planned and well executed, taking learnings from previous schemes which were hugely over-subscribed. “This scheme is also a welcome boost for the heating industry as many homeowners have stalled on plans to update their heating systems due to a mild winter and continuing economic uncertainty. It has also demonstrated once again the importance of installers as a source of information for incentive-driven initiatives. As ever, Plumb Center customers can make or break schemes of this kind and those who ignore this fact do so at their peril.” The London Boiler Scrappage Scheme gives up to 6,500 owner occupiers and accredited private landlords in the capital the opportunity to claim £400 cash back upon the replacement of a working but inefficient boiler (rated at 70% efficient or less) with a new ‘A-rated’ model, or a renewable/low carbon heating system. To find out more or to apply visit www.london.gov.uk/boilers. Source link

The latest research by landlord insurance provider, Direct Line for Business, has found that on average, British renters spend an average of 18 months in a rented property before moving on. Birmingham has the lowest tenant turnover, with renters staying an average of two years and four months in the same property. Cardiff on the other hand, has the highest turnover, with the average property being vacated less than a year after being filled. Leeds (12 months) and Bristol (14 months) also have a high turnover of tenants, which could prove problematic for local landlords. The analysis also looked at the average time it takes to fill a vacated property revealing that on average, it takes a landlord 22 days to find a new tenant. This could result in an average loss of £547 in uncollected rent. When calculating the yield for a property, landlords need to take into account this void period and ensure they have sufficient resources to meet any mortgage, ground rent or other charges. Vacant properties in Birmingham are filled the quickest, with a landlord finding a tenant in just 11 days. However, in Liverpool and Aberdeen landlords struggle the most to fill their properties, taking an average of 33 days, to find a suitable candidate. Direct Line for Business’s analysis estimates that this gap in rent could cost landlords as much as £761 in Liverpool and £913 in Aberdeen. Even with such a competitive rental market in London, letting agents in the capital claim that it takes just under three weeks (20 days) on average to fill a property. With average monthly rents in central London surpassing £2,000 this could amount to a loss of £1,869 in income. The research also found that landlords can’t always rely on occupants remaining in a property for the duration of their tenancy agreement, with one in 11 (9%) moving out early. The highest rate of tenancy turnover is north of the border in Aberdeen where a fifth (19%) of tenants leave a property before the end of the tenancy agreement with Leeds and Sheffield both close behind at 13%. Nick Breton, head of Direct Line for Business, said: “This research highlights the pressure landlords are under to replace outgoing tenants in their properties. Vacant properties are obviously a worry for landlords but it’s vitally important that they take into account void periods when calculating the affordability of owning a rental property. Staying on top of the on-going changes within the industry can be time-consuming and a battle for landlords and we fully appreciate the challenges they face when it comes to managing their rental properties. To help alleviate some of the stress, we have developed the Mobile Landlord app which can manage up to five properties. The app can track income, calculate yields, set handy reminders such as when a tenancy agreement may be coming to an end and also keep landlords up-to-date with any new changes in the market through its Knowledge Centre.” Top tips for landlords wanting to keep their tenants for the duration of their agreement: Be fair: The rental market is always shifting, so it’s worth keeping an eye on how competitive your rent is compared to the local market. The cost of rent is one of the biggest factors when it comes to influencing renters so making sure your tenants feel like they are paying a fair price will go a long way to ensuring they don’t look elsewhere Be flexible: Assuming that you trust your current tenants in the property, it is always worth being flexible on certain elements of the rental contract. It is important for occupants to make their house feel like a home, so if this involves decorating or minor DIY – or even getting a pet – it is worth being open to requests and discussing them with tenants to make sure everyone stays happy Be approachable: As a landlord, it is your responsibility to keep the property in decent condition for your occupants, and it is important for tenants to feel that they can reach you when they need to. By maintaining contact and being approachable, this could easily prevent small problems becoming big problems Be helpful: As well as responding to requests, it can be hugely beneficial in the long run to make the first move – especially when a tenant moves in. Furthermore, if you know that for example a washing machine is getting old, it will only improve your relationship with your tenants if you replace it before it breaks down. This can also make your life a lot easier! Source link

Third Party Cookies We use a number of social media tools to enhance visitor interaction on our site. If you already use these platforms their cookies may be set through our website. Data may then be collected by these companies that enables them to serve up adverts on other sites that they think are relevent to your interests. If you do not use such platforms then our site will not place these cookies on your device. Twitter Cookies: __utma, __utmb, __utmc, __utmv, __utmz, _sm_au_d, _twitter_sess, _twitter_sess, ab_sess_activity_ddg_126, ab_sess_activity_up_top_98, ab_sess_promoted_arrows_and_pills_78, ab_sess_Relevance_V1-49, ab_sess_search_relevance_ranked_hits_189, ab_sess_search_relevance_social_167, ab_sess_t1_actions_156, ab_sess_wtf_user_to_user_rec_155, auth_token, auth_token_session, dnt, external_referer, guest_id, k, lang, original_referer, pid, secure_session, t1, twid, twll Facebook Cookies: _e_0ITr_10, _e_bWDI_21, _e_bWDI_22, _e_bWDI_23, _e_bWDI_24, _e_CTMK_0, _e_CTMK_1, _e_CTMK_2, _e_e6Yv_0, _e_e6Yv_1, _e_e6Yv_2, _sm_au_d, act, c_user, c_user, datr, e, L, L, lu, presence, reg_ext_ref, reg_ext_ref, reg_fb_gate, reg_fb_gate, reg_fb_ref, reg_fb_ref, sct, sct, wd, x-referer, xs, xs Google Cookies: _sm_au_d, APISID, BEAT, HSID, IGTP, NID, OTZ, PP_TOS_ACK, PREF, S, S_awfe, SAPISID, SID, SS, SSID, ULS, W6D Microsoft Cookies: MC1, WT_FPC Source link

Doosan Bobcat, the South Korean maker of earth-moving equipment, has pared back its $2.2bn public float because of low demand, marking the second big blow for the country’s equity markets this year. The unit of South Korea’s biggest construction equipment maker had been aiming to raise Won2.45tn ($2.2bn) in what was on course to be Seoul’s largest initial public offering in six years. The country’s markets have been seeking a boost since Lotte Group scrapped plans for a $4.5bn IPO of its hotels unit in June pending the outcome of a corruption investigation into the chaebol, South Korea’s family-run conglomerates. Korean IPO volumes are down more than one-quarter year-on-year in 2016 so far, outpacing a global decline, and have raised just $1.7bn in the first three quarters of the year. This latest blow also comes as bankers are preparing the sale of Samsung Biologics, a pharmaceutical contract manufacturer, and mobile game maker Netmarble Games. Analysts said Doosan’s failure could weigh on those deals, but sources involved with the Samsung transaction reported strong early interest in its $2bn deal last week even as Doosan Bobcat’s sale was reported to be in trouble. New hints and tips Track the topics most important to you all in one place More tips Doosan Bobcat said on Monday that demand among institutional investors was lower than expected but it still planned to go ahead with a revised offering soon. “Some factors including the number of total share did not align with market conditions, and taking this into consideration, the company will adjust the deal structure and push ahead with the IPO again,” said Doosan Bobcat. The news dragged down the shares of its affiliates, with Doosan Engine finishing 10.6 per cent lower and Doosan Infracore down 7.1 per cent. Seoul’s sluggish stock market was seen as a factor in the deal’s failure too. “Investor appetite for IPOs is not so strong these days, given the Kospi’s range-bound trade,” said Lee Jae-won, an analyst at Yuanta Securities. Doosan Bobcat, had offered shares at between Won40,000 and Won50,000 in a sell-down by existing shareholders including Doosan Infracore, the company’s largest shareholder with a 66.6 per cent stake, and Doosan Engine, another unit. Doosan Infracore planned to use its share of the proceeds to pay down debt. Doosan Bobcat is the leading maker of small construction equipment in North America with a 41 per cent market share for skid-steer loaders. The company reported a 5 per cent increase in first-half operating profit to Won234.8bn on sales of Won2.15tn. It generates about 70 per cent of its sales in North America. Sample the FT’s top stories for a week You select the topic, we deliver the news. Source link

©PA Archive Ian Kerr leaving Knutsford Crown Court in 2009 Ian Kerr was buried at his local Catholic church on a wintry day in December 2012. His widow Mary blamed his heart attack on the pressure of being the focus of a scandal about a blacklist of construction workers. “He was frightened to death about it,” she said shortly after the funeral. “He took it so badly. For four years he had it hanging over him.” More On this topic IN UK Business & Economy No one believed there was a secret blacklist barring thousands of workers from the construction industry until four investigators from the Information Commissioner’s office turned up at the offices of Consulting Association in Droitwich, West Midlands in February 2009. The firm, essentially a one-man operation run by Mr Kerr, did not appear in company registers and had no nameplate on its door. But it was the nerve centre of a secret operation, spanning decades, that gathered information for more than 40 British construction companies that decided whether or not to hire staff based on the words scrawled by Mr Kerr on colour-coded pieces of card. A typical file contained a worker’s full name, date of birth, home address, national insurance number, vehicle registration, work history, trade union membership and involvement in industrial action. Files also recorded when fresh queries were made on individuals and the advice relayed — for example, to employ “under no circumstances whatsoever”. Typical files included phrases such as “troublemaker and is politically motivated”; “militant and upfront in strike”; “currently drives 4WD Diahatsu”, “drew H&S [health and safety] issues to attention of 3245’s site manager”; “possibly involved with woman solicitor”; “known to create trouble”; “militant mouthpiece” and “appeared on BBC ‘Money Programme’”. Every week I came home and had to tell my wife I had been let go again. She would think it was something to do with me One claimant, Steve, who was blacklisted after joining a strike, said his failure to find work led to marital tensions. “Every week I came home and had to tell my wife I had been let go again. She would think it was something to do with me, because we did not know about the blacklist. We would have that circle every three weeks,” he said. “It is like eastern Europe, or East Germany or Russia — that kind of thing. It is just unbelievable.” In the 1960s the mild-mannered Mr Kerr was teaching art at a primary school when his wife saw an advert in the Birmingham Post for a training officer. The employer turned out to be the Economic League, a rightwing organisation set up after the first world war to counter the spread of socialism. It held files on thousands of individuals working in a range of industries. When the league was dismantled in the early 1990s after criticism in parliament, Mr Kerr bought the files relating to construction workers and continued to monitor left-wingers. His activities continued up until the raid in 2009, after which he was fined £5,000. The Consulting Association was overseen by a steering committee made up of “key people” in the UK’s largest construction businesses, including John Laing, Tarmac, Amec, Amey and Balfour Beatty. Those companies referred individuals to the blacklist — typically for suspected trade union activism — paying about £2 a time to check whether potential recruits were already listed. In written evidence to the Scottish affairs select committee, Mr Kerr listed a string of big public sector projects for which businesses used his services. These included the Millennium Dome, 2012 Olympics sites, NHS hospitals, GCHQ buildings and the Ministry of Defence’s facilities in Whitehall. It is like eastern Europe, or East Germany or Russia — that kind of thing. It is just unbelievable His information came from skimming leftwing publications, talking to company managers and scouring other potential sources of intelligence. Some was just thinly sourced hearsay. Most of those named were blue-collar workers but the list included other figures such as Charles Woolfson, a former lecturer in industrial relations from the University of Glasgow, who studied the offshore oil industry after the Piper Alpha accident. He said it was “disconcerting” to have been singled out. When Mr Kerr died two weeks after giving evidence to the committee some leftwingers posted offensive messages on social media. One tweeted: “Hope he died in agony.” Mrs Kerr said her husband did not deserve the opprobrium. He never had any doubts about the job he was doing, she said, adding: “I think you have got to understand that these people…I would have described them as natural scumballs.” Branded a troublemaker since 1976   James Berrington, 63, was awarded £25,000 for being one of the thousands blacklisted from construction work. The former pipelayer first appeared, without his knowledge, in the files in 1976, when they were held by the Economic League, a rightwing group. From that point onwards, he says, he struggled to find the kind of work he wanted: he ended up working as a security guard, sometimes until 2.45am. Later the father of three moved to Glasgow to work as a concierge. “At the time I did not think anything of it, I just thought that the industry was going through a bad period,” he said. “When I discovered that my name was on the file I was a bit pissed, to be honest, I did not know why it had happened or what I had done wrong.” Mr Berrington admitted that he was a “troublemaker” in his youth and that he backed the Workers Revolutionary party, a Trotskyist group. But he said that his political beliefs should never have stood in the way of him being able to do an honest day’s work. The original 1976 file referred to his involvement in a dispute at a textile factory in Derby in the East Midlands. After a worker had been sacked “for no reason”, he had successfully intervened: persuading colleagues to walk out in

The Competition and Markets Authority has said it regrets resorting to a price cap remedy for the energy industry. Chair of the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) energy market inquiry, Roger Witcomb, told Utility Week that the panel “sort of regrets” having to recommend a price cap for the industry, but that it will have the “most obvious and measureable effect”. “We sort of regret having to do it because normally we tend not to go for price caps. But in this case, the case was so overwhelming,” he said. “Clearly the price cap will have the most direct, obvious and measurable effect and that’s a big deal. It is nice to be able to hit a particular part of the detriment hard, predictably and soon, in the knowledge that as smart meters come in and we move on it will fall away of its own accord.” The CMA published its remedies for the industry in June this year and included that a transitional price cap for prepay meters should be implemented until the full smart meter rollout has been completed. Witcomb added: “It clearly will have an impact on competition in the sector today and it would be illogical for us to claim anything else. But our view was that there wasn’t much competition there anyway.” Source link

9 June 2016 | Deborah Shrewsbury The boom in construction activity and skills shortages, along with the knock-on effects of volatility in commodities markets and China’s economic slide are significantly affecting the costs associated with constructing real estate worldwide.   But the drama doesn’t have to become a crisis, says the International Construction Market Survey 2016, published by global real estate analyst Turner & Townsend, if operators at either a local or international level can understand how these changes could affect the delivery of major projects and programmes.   Companies that are able to start “thinking differently” and adapt to deploy the right tactics to manage risks and control costs could actually “seize opportunities in a new world”, says the report.   And it adds that despite being fettered by a strained supply chain, London remains a forerunner and one of the places expected to buck the general trend to see strong growth in tender prices in a booming construction market – mainly in residential construction.   Gathering cost data from 38 markets and analysing over £500 billion of global real estate investment, the survey paints a picture of an “overstretched, over-reliant and polarised market” within which two distinct types of markets have emerged.   These, it says, can be defined as the ‘overstretched’ – those experiencing capacity constraints and labour shortages, such as London and New York City, and the ‘over-reliant’ – who have seen weak growth in GDP because of oversupply of commodities and falling demand from China – such as Australia and Brazil.   Global construction costs are expected to rise overall by 2.9 per cent in 2016, and the report gives snapshots of the prevailing economic winds in the world’s megacities.   It says regions with a stronger exposure to the Chinese economy – such as Hong Kong, Singapore and Kuala Lumpur are likely to see a slide – along with Johannesburg, Perth, São Paulo and Santiago.   In fact, only nine markets of the 38 levels will see increases in construction activity over the next year, 10 will see falls, and 19 will see little change.   London, central and northern regions of the UK, and Northern Ireland are forecast to be among the nine that will “warm up” during 2016. But the shadow of a possible Brexit vote hangs over the UK’s longer-term prospects. The uncertainty has applied a gentle brake on investment growth and construction output since late 2015. The EU decision, warns the report, will have considerable implications for the future of Britain, Europe, and the wider global economy.   The International Construction Market Survey 2016 can be found here. Source link

The Ministry of Defence (MoD) has been issued with a Crown Censure by the Health and Safety Executive (HSE) after a soldier died when he was shot in the neck on a training exercise. Fusilier Dean Griffiths, 21, whose partner was expecting their first child, received a fatal bullet wound to the neck on 14 September 2011 during a ‘live’ training exercise at Lydd Ranges military firing range in Kent. The exercise involved troops approaching a specially built ‘shoot through’ compound (not designed to capture rounds), that had been created to simulate the type of building the troops would encounter in Afghanistan. The Company were split into an assault group to enter and secure the compound and a fire support group to provide cover. The compound contained both enemy and civilian targets in order to train the troops’ judgment. The targets were made from thin plywood to allow the live bullets pullets to pass through them and avoid ricochets. The Health and Safety Executive (HSE) investigation found it was usual practice on site that unused targets were laid on the floor to give the appearance of debris. However, on this instance an unused target had been stood up in the wrong place. Fusilier Griffiths was part of the assault group, and was lined up against the wall of the compound while the wall was breached with a simulated explosion. Two colleagues entered the compound, followed by a safety supervisor, and panned left and right to deal with any initial enemy combatants. HSE’s investigation found that as one of the troops entered and turned right he saw an enemy target and fired two shots at the target. Almost immediately someone shouted for the exercise to stop and all the men laid down their weapons. Fusilier Griffiths had been shot as he lined up on the other side of the compound wall. The bullet had passed through the incorrectly placed enemy target, through the compound wall and hit Fusilier Griffiths in the neck. He died at the scene. HSE investigators found the exercise was undermanned and two groups had been merged to cope with the lack of resource. HSE found the incident could have been prevented by not using targets as debris on the compound and by introducing a final walk through before each run through by the RCO (Range Conducting Officer) to ensure all targets corresponded to the target plan for the exercise. By accepting the Crown Censure, the MoD admitted breaching it’s duty under Section 2(1) and 2(2) of the Health and Safety at Work etc. Act 1974 in that they exposed their employees to risks to their health, safety and welfare. Those risks manifested themselves in a lack of a Safe System of Work at and the manner in which the exercise was organised. The MoD cannot face prosecution in the same way as non-Government bodies and a Crown Censure is the maximum sanction for a government body that HSE can bring. There is no financial penalty associated with Crown Censure, but once accepted is an official record of a failing to meet the standards set out in law. Notes to Editors: The breach of law the Censure is being issued over is: Section 2(1) of the Health and Safety at Work etc. Act 1974, which states: “It shall be the duty of every employer to ensure, so far as is reasonably practicable, the health, safety and welfare at work of all his employees.” More information on Crown Censures can be found here: http://www.hse.gov.uk/enforce/enforcementguide/investigation/approving-enforcement.htm The Code for Crown Prosecutors sets out the principles for prosecutors to follow when they make enforcement decisions. HSE’s approach to Crown Censure is set out in its enforcement policy statement.   Source link