Housing Focus – Page 6
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Features
Nightmare on Nine Elms street?
The UK’s biggest construction site in west London looks on paper like a dream development in a market desperate for new housing. But amid scare stories of fleeing investors and slashed prices
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Features
The R word is back
Five years after the coalition cut nearly all funding for regeneration, the government is talking warmly of knocking down estates and rebuilding as part of a ‘blitz’ on poverty. But with just £140m pledged to back the drive and a host of obstacles to overcome, how excited should the development ...
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Features
Energiesprong: Sprong is here
A runaway success in the Netherlands, a boon for contractors and for occupiers, simple, ready-to-use and straight out of the box: could Energiesprong be the UK housing retrofit market’s new start?
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Features
Small housebuilders: Packing a punch
For years, volume housebuilders have held sway over the UK’s new homes sales market. But against expectations, the recession has given some small builders the chance to challenge their supremacy
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Features
A non-starter?
In a week in which the government announced its intention to ‘directly commission’ up to 13,000 homes, you might think it had begun, finally, to get a grip on housebuilding. But its flagship Starter Homes policy is set to shake up the development industry, causing delays - and fears it ...
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Features
Housing: Home delivery
While politicians wrangle over the number of homes they propose to build, housing stock is falling woefully behind the UK’s needs
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Features
Housebuilders' salary survey 2015: Making hay…
This year’s housebuilders’ salary survey finds that wages and bonuses are both on the up. But how long will it last?
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Features
1 million homes: Hitting the mark
Housing minister Brandon Lewis has publicly stated that he wants to see over one million homes built in the next five years. But can the sector meet this challenge?
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Features
Housing associations: Going it alone
Housing associations are being forced to find efficiencies, with some taking repairs and maintenance work in-house and leaving private contractors out in the cold
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Features
Interview: Geeta Nanda
With government policies that cut rents and extend Right to Buy, housing associations are feeling the strain. But Geeta Nanda of Thames Valley Housing has an alternative approach
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Features
Interview: Brandon Lewis
¾«¶«Ó°ÊÓ talks to housing minister Brandon Lewis about the Conservative government’s radical policy agenda
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Features
Top 150 contractors: Slow, slow, quick, quick, slow
This year’s contractors and housebuilders Top 150 list shows the sector pulling out of recession and with a spring in its step. But with big losses for some contractors pushing down profits, and margins increasing by a mere 1.2%, the danger remains they could still fall flat on their backs. ...
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Features
It’s time to fix the housing crisis
With a dire shortage of homes in the country, what has the government got to do to get housing working again?
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Features
¾«¶«Ó°ÊÓ Award Winners: Housing Project of the Year
This year’s housing projects have been chosen for exceptional design work and for providing a boost to their local community, with one entry standing out on both these factors
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Features
¾«¶«Ó°ÊÓ Award Winners: Housebuilder of the Year
In a year that has seen housebuilders as the centre of attention, these four were singled out not just for their strong financial results, but for their work towards the betterment of the sector
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Features
True cost of sustainable homes
Our roundtable of housing experts, sponsored by the Joseph Rowntree Foundation, gathered to discuss how housebuilders can build sustainably and cheaply
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Features
UKIP: The vocal minority
Control immigration and large areas of British countryside will not need to be destroyed by housebuilding, says UKIP. Nationalist populism at its most simplistic, perhaps, but the party’s anti-development stance is bearing down on politics at a local level
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Features
Behind the hype: Sustainable new homes
New research is casting further doubt on long-held claims that a new-build property is necessarily cheaper to run than a refurbished Victorian home
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Features
Council housing: Maybe this time…
After years of decline, council house building looks set to enjoy something of a resurgence. But can the new generation of council homes avoid the stigmas of the past?
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Features
SME housebuilders: Small talk
The proportion of homes built by small housebuilders has halved in recent years. So, with listed builders increasing output and reporting record profits, why are their smaller competitors still struggling to make ends meet?