Review of gas safety invites engineers to have their say Published:  03 October, 2016 Gas Safe Register is launching an in-depth report into the past, present and future for gas safety to be published next summer. The report, known as the ‘Decade Review, will consider the opportunities and challenges faced across the industry since the Frontline Review, which resulted in the created of Gas Safe Register, was published in 2006. It will also look forward towards what the next decade may bring. Engineers are invited to voice their thoughts as part of the pan-industry review, including through focus groups and online surveys. Scott Darroch, project director for the review, said: “As part of the Decade Review report, we are looking to speak with a wide range of stakeholders from sole trader registered businesses, training and assessment companies, charities and national energy companies. “This consultation will help the team at Gas Safe Register shape, and continue to improve, the service we offer by giving us an in-depth insight into what the industry needs. In such a fast-changing industry that has seen many developments over the last decade, including new legislation and technology, the intent is for the Decade Review to be a useful report that the whole industry can turn to.” The process of gathering information for the Decade Review is now underway with all results to be captured by independent research agency Accent. Details on the different routes any interested parties can use to contribute will be announced shortly.  Image courtesy of Shutterstock/SpeedKingz Source link

New APHC president focuses on building regulations and lobbying activities in inaugural speech Published:  05 July, 2016 In his first speech as national president of the Association of Plumbing and Heating Contractors (APHC), Brian Silvester discussed two important activities focused on improving trading conditions for the quality plumbing and heating contractor. He said: “Over the next year I would like to promote and support the lobbying work that we are engaged in; which I am quite passionate about, and personally believe will bring about much needed change for the betterment of our industry.” Speaking at the annual APHC President’s Dinner on Saturday, Mr Silvester began his speech with a discussion of the independent research currently being undertaken into the lack of enforcement of Building Regulations in the plumbing and heating industry. The new president went on to detail how the research aims both to quantify levels of enforcement activity taking place with relation to Building Regulations work and qualify the experiences of plumbing and heating contractors in this area around on site workmanship standards and the issues they face when applying regulations and competing for work. Emphasising that the key aim of the research is to quantify the impact of current enforcement strategies on the plumbing and heating industry, Mr Silvester explained that the findings, due to be made public by APHC next month, will form the basis of new industry solutions to be presented to government later in the year. Alongside other bodies in our industry, we aim to lobby government for much needed regulatory change in this area. The Association’s president also spoke about APHC’s work, in collaboration with a number of industry partners and larger gas contracting businesses, in bringing about refinements to the ACS gas reassessment requirements. He said that following general concern around ACS’s five-year reassessment requirements, the broad principles of a re-shaped ACS reassessment package have now been ratified by the SMB group, which oversees the scheme. John Thompson, chief executive at APHC, said: “It was great to see Mr Silvester’s passion for the important work APHC is undertaking to improve trading conditions in the plumbing and heating industry. The improvement of Building Regulations enforcement and subtle changes to the ACS reassessment process will certainly be a key priority for him in his second term of office and we wish him the best of luck for what we are sure will be a successful and productive year.” Source link

Report calls for government to rethink domestic heat strategy Published:  15 September, 2016 Think tank Policy Exchange has published a new report – Too hot to handle? – looking at how to decarbonise domestic heating. Richard Howard, head of environment and energy at Policy Exchange and author of the report, outlined that despite being a critical and substantial part of our energy system, heat has been largely overlooked in energy policy debates for years. The report provides a critique of the previous government’s heat strategy, which was developed by the then Department of Energy & Climate Change in 2012 and 2013. Policy Exchange argues that the strategy, which largely focuses on shifting homes to electric heat pumps, looks extremely expensive and difficult to achieve in practice, costing around £300 billion. This takes into account the installation cost of more than £8,500 per heat pump, the cost of upgrading the grid, and the additional 100 Gigawatts of power generation capacity that would be required to meet the demand for electricity. All in all it would cost as much as £12,000 per household to deliver the previous government’s plans to reduce carbon emissions from domestic heating.  The report suggests that the newly created Department for Business, Energy & Industrial Strategy (BEIS) needs to take a fresh look at its approach to decarbonising heat. Policy Exchange also looked at the validity of hydrogen conversion and found that, while on face value it may be appealing, it too carries significant cost and challenges. As a result, Policy Exchange worked with Delta Energy and Environment to develop and model some alternative approaches to decarbonise heating. The analysis shows that an 80% reduction in carbon emissions could be achieved through a combination of: Improving energy efficiency – for example by tightening standards for new build homes and for existing private rented properties, and by linking the stamp duty system to energy performance to encourage households to improve their properties. Making better use of gas – by tightening boiler standards and encouraging people to replace old boilers with new highly efficient boilers. Expanding the use of “greener gases” – for example injecting biomethane into the gas grid, and supporting the development of new technologies, which convert “black bag” residual waste into synthetic biogas. Rolling out heat networks to millions of homes, which in the future will need to use low carbon sources of heat. A more limited rollout of electric heat pumps Policy Exchange proposes that government develops a new heat strategy (most likely as part of the forthcoming Carbon Plan) based on the following broad principles:  A long-term commitment to decarbonising heat – this is a multi-decadal infrastructure challenge, and will require significant political vision and commitment.  Put consumers back at the heart of the heat strategy – the new heat strategy needs to be more consumer-friendly – working with the grain of consumer preferences, and minimising the costs and burdens placed on consumers.  Avoid “picking winners”: Government should avoid setting technology specific targets and “picking winners” and instead create a set of market conditions, which encourage the most cost effective routes to decarbonise heating. To that end, we recommend that the (technology-specific) 2020 Renewable Energy and Renewable Heat targets should be scrapped.  Use carbon pricing to encourage lower carbon solutions: the taxes and levies placed on heating fuels should be adjusted to better reflect their carbon content.  Integrate heat, energy efficiency and fuel poverty: Improving energy efficiency is among the most cost-effective routes to decarbonise heat, and offers co-benefits such as reducing fuel poverty. These agendas need to be far more integrated.  A national strategy with a localised approach: The decarbonisation of heat will require a mix of technologies, rather than “one size fits all” solutions, and the best course of action will vary by location and over time. This raises questions about governance and decision-making. Technology and system challenges: The decarbonisation of heat presents significant challenges for the operation of gas and electricity systems. The availability of storage will be key to the deployment of alternative heat technologies. The government needs to focus more research funding on developing and piloting heat and energy efficiency technologies. Source link

Brickvest in partnership with Venn Partners has launched its first commercial real estate debt investment opportunity. Brickvest is an online real estate platform. This is an area that allows investment in institutional grade investment opportunities. This platform also allows investors to actively manage their investment portfolio. Venn Partners was founded in2009 and is a management system that focuses on prime asset-backed direct lending. This scheme with Venn is the first real estate debt product that will be available on the BrickVest site. As a result of the new launce, BrickVest will be able to be the single point of access when dealing with institutional-grade real estate investments. This opportunity with Venn Partners will allow BrickVest users to get at direct lending opportunities form within the European commercial real estate market. Paul House, the leader of the Venn Partners commercial real estate group. House has also been Head of Citigroup’s Real Estate EMEA business. Since the start of the operation in 2013, the team has originated more than €1.5 billion in loans. Being the first commercial real estate debt product available on BrickVest, this new partnership will allow the platform to expand and open up more options for the company. BrickVest users will be able to invest in commercial real estate opportunities through an easy to access online trading platform. Investments can start from a low minimum amount and provides an opportunity that previously was only open to larger institutions. These larger institutions that were able to invest before includes pension funds and insurance companies. The basis of the investment strategy is value-add loans within the mid-market. This practice allows for a strong borrower demand while also allowing investors to create attractive risk adjusted returns. Investing in the UK commercial real estate sector remains attractive despite a cloudy economic future. Exposure to the BrickVest platform allows investors to diversify with other fixed income assets.

With International Womens’ week on the 8th of March, there has been an increase of information promoting Women in trade industries. Sectors like electricians and plumbing have traditionally been categorised under as ‘man jobs’ but with more emphasis on trying to attract women to these positions, there has been a slight shift in mentality. However it is slow progress as currently less than 1% of electricians are female. Although it will take some time before the sector isn’t completely dominated by men, attempts to persuade women to have a career within the trade industry will help equal out the figures. The NICEIC is voluntary regulatory body within the electrical contracting industry. Fulfilling this role for nearly 60 years, with more than 26,000 contractors registered with them; and sectors that cover plumbing, heating renewable and insulation sections of the industry, the NICEIC has a vast reach. The certification body has suggested that more needs to be done to make careers as electricians or plumbers look more open to both boys and girls at school level. Proper education about the industry will improve the chances of women pursuing a trade like electrician as opposed to the more typical hairdressing or childcare roles. The Jobs for the Girls is a campaign created by the NICEIC to try and tempt girls towards the construction sector. The campaign runs from the belief that learning a trade is now akin to going to university. With the high price of University tuition fees and doubtless more increases to come, the appeal of apprenticeships is increasing. The prospect of being able to earn and more importantly gain valuable experience while studying makes more sense than paying the high cost of attending University, with no guarantee of gaining any relevant practical experience and no set job prospects at the end of it. With this change, it would be remiss for the construction industry to not reach out to as many people as possible to expand their workforce, which includes targeting girls, as they represent a previously untapped market of people to train.

One of the main issues the pop-up market has to contend with is hefty overheads. The cost of rent, wages, fit-out and advertising fees associated with running a pop-up shop comes to around £15,000 a month. Given that the average sale price point for an item in a pop-up shop is £40, retailers are then under pressure to sell as many as 1,000 items a day. “The maths just doesn’t work out,” says Russell. All the content from this weekís magazine, including this article, is available in the new app. Keeping sales volumes at such a high velocity as an individual operation is hard to do. Russell admits that of the few complaints he had from vendors, most of them were because they were not selling enough. Another warning sign is that there is still no dominant player. “We have not seen that winning competitor which has been able to attract capital left, right and centre,” Russell says. Whereas other start-ups have clear dominating players, such as Uber in the transport sector and Airbnb for accommodation, there is still no global pop-up equivalent, says Russell. He suggests that more attention should be paid to how the pop-up sector mirrors movements in the wider retail market. “Pop-ups work much better in a cluster,” he says. “If you scale it down it is like a micro-environment for the retail world – the food does well, the brands do well, but if you are starting the brand to reach the market then it is tough.” Russell believes to create pop-ups that work, the model needs to form part of a wider consumer experience and become a destination in its own right, in a similar vein to how shopping centres are focusing on becoming leisure destinations rather than just shopping malls. The first step to doing this is moving the responsibility for infrastructure from the tenant to the landlord. “People are not shopping at individual brands, they are shopping at destinations. The people that will win at this are those that start packaging pop-up with infrastructure. The serious problem with pop-up space is that most landlords do not offer this,” says Russell. Successful pop-up destinations such as Boxpark in Shoreditch, E1, and London Union’s Street Feast, E8, provide basic shop fit-out, marketing and customers, which is a much more viable model for tenants. When renting an empty shop for a pop-up, it is much harder to make it work on your own without the added infrastructure. Choosing where it will work without the support from other retailers is another challenge. “There needs to be much better data about where retailers should go,” says Russell. “There needs to be some kind of mechanism telling people where they will be successful as footfall is no longer indicative.” Landlords need to think more about how they are working with pop-ups too. Russell believes that one of the ways in which pop-ups will be able to work best is if they complement an existing retail destination, such as a department store. “Landlords need to think about what they are doing,” he says. “The reality of making this work is that there is a loss-leader somewhere and then you make money. “This is not a money-maker, it is about what you do with the space. Once you have brought in the experience element, you can think about where you will make your upside.” Source link

Date and Location Wednesday 20th April 2016, National Metalforming Centre, 49 Birmingham Road, West Bromwich, West Midlands B70 6PY Event overview Meeting of the Birmingham Health, Safety and Environment Association, beginning at 9.30 to 15.00 including buffet lunch. Target audience: Those with responsibility for investigating and managing claims High profile speakers from: Plexus Law, QBE Insurance, No5 Chambers, AXA UK, DPD Group Key topics: the law relating to Health and Safety and claims; claims process – key steps; ‘real-life’ examples, outcomes and learning points; case study; practical ‘tools’ for your ‘claims management toolbox’ Further information and booking To book or to find out more, contact Liz Prophett, BHSEA Secretary Secretary@bhsea.org.uk or visit the BHSEA website. Source link

The UK’s vote to the leave to the European Union is likely to push up energy bills, according to the chair of the Energy and Climate Change select committee. Angus MacNeil told Utility Week that, with the pound plummeting and Standard and Poor’s saying the UK’s AAA credit rating is “untenable”, there will be “a premium for investment”. “All we can hope is things settle in a week,” he said. “The people looking like taking over the helm – Johnson and Farage – do not encourage much confidence at all.” MacNeil said the big utilities are international companies, which “rely on people from many other countries”. He said the vote for Brexit has made the UK look “small-minded and distrustful of others” and asked: “Do you want to go to a country with that attitude?” “You can imagine a higher cost of energy as we continue along that path,” he concluded. MacNeil also said Scotland “will lead England” on energy policy post-Brexit. Director of E3G Jonanthan Gaventa has told Utility Week Ofgem should be given a special role to ensure regulatory compatibility between the UK and the EU following the vote.  Read more reaction from the industry here and here. Source link